The dark staircase wound upward in the centre of the hallway, its handrail hacked by the swords of soldiers in the Revolution. As I glanced at it, and then out along the long avenue, I seemed to see Tarleton's scarlet-clad dragoons dashing up to surround the house. Then, as I turned westward, imagination travelled still further into the past, and pictured the slow approach of a British packet, gliding peacefully up to the little wharf down yonder, to discharge its household freight of tea and spices, of India muslins and "callamancoes" before it proceeded on its way to the town of Williamsburg, a few miles farther up the river. At the period of which I was dreaming, Williamsburg was the capital of the province, with a wide street named in honor of the Duke of Gloucester, and a college named after their late majesties, William and Mary, with a jolly Raleigh tavern and a stately Governor's Palace; but all this had come about some fifty years before the building of _Carter's Grove_. [Illustration: Hall in Carter's Grove James River Va.] In the middle of the seventeenth century it was far more primitive,--indeed, it was not Williamsburg at all, but only "The Middle Plantation," with a few pioneer houses surrounded by primeval forests, from which savage red faces now and then peered out, to the terror of the settlers; while at nightfall the heavy wooden shutters had been closed, lest the firelight should prove a shining mark for the Indian's arrow. If the traveller found Williamsburg in the eighteenth century "a straggling village," and its mansions "houses of very moderate pretensions," what would he have thought of those first modest homes, where the horse-trough was the family wash-basin; where stools and benches, hung against the wall, constituted the furniture; where the kitchen-table served for dining-table as well, and was handsomely set out with bowls, trenchers, and noggins of wood, with gourds and squashes daintily cut, to add color to the meal; while the family was counted well off that could muster a few spoons, and a plate or two of shining pewter! But those pioneers and their wives felt pride in their little homes, for they realized how favorably they contrasted with the cabins built at "James Cittie" by Wingfield and Smith and their fellow-adventurers. They had indeed more cause for honest pride than the stay-at-homes in England could ever realize, for such knew nothing of the infinite toil and the difficulty of founding a settlement in a new country, thousands of miles from civilization, with forests to be cleared and savages to be fought, turbulent followers to be ruled, and food, shelter, and clothing to be provided.