"Why this particular family should have wandered down to the backwoods and mountains of Virginia remains a mystery, unless they were of a patriotic and poetical turn, and found in her wild hills and boundless woods something to remind them of the Hartz Mountains and the Black Forest. However that may be, they came, took up a great tract of land, built themselves a dwelling place (the old house adjoining this), and settled down permanently. "For a time they were prosperous, as others were, and then, by bad agriculture, they grew poor, as others in this neighborhood did. If we may believe tradition the poorer this family grew the prouder they became, until at last, pride and poverty united, culminated in the character and the circumstances of the last heiress of the elder branch of the family, Madeleine Van Der Vaughan. "At the age of twenty-five Madeleine Van Der Vaughan was left, by the death of her father (her mother died long before), sole heiress of a worn-out plantation and dilapidated house. "Madeleine is reported to have possessed great and singular beauty--a tall and imperial form, a fine head, with strongly marked and perfectly regular features, a deep, rich complexion, and hair, eyes and eyebrows all black as Erebus. Gifted and accomplished was she also, and, as I stated, proud as Lucifer. It is said that this overweening pride prevented her taking a husband from among her numerous visitors, none of whom, though of the best families in the State, she deemed worthy of her own "high alliance."" "Until at last her relative, Ernest Wolfgang Van Der Vaughan, made his appearance in her train and claimed her hand; a claim that was indorsed by her acceptance. "It is said that family pride had to do with this marriage much more than love. However that might be, no sooner was the knot securely tied, than Mr. Van Der Vaughan began to importune his wife to sell her land and homestead that they might emigrate to the West. But in vain; for Mrs. Van Der Vaughan would not, for an instant, entertain the idea of alienating her patrimony. "On the contrary, she had one ambition concerning her inheritance--an ambition that reached the height of a ruling passion--and that was, to resuciate the dead soil of the plantation and to rebuild the mansion house. "All Ernest Van Der Vaughan's property consisted in bank stock. All Madeleine's estate was in worthless land and negroes. But she offered him, as she would not have offered any other than a Van Der Vaughan, the fee simple of her plantation, if he would only devote his money to the restoring of the worn-out fields and the rebuilding of the homestead. "Ernest did not like the plan, and he told her so. He explained to her how, at one-tenth the outlay that he should have to make for manures and for labor to resusciate this effete soil, he could go to Iowa and purchase a large farm of the richest land and build a comfortable dwelling-house and all needful offices around it.