Thomas Nelson Page opened his eyes in old Virginia on April 23, 1853. He was a rather precocious boy. Many a beating did he receive at school for stealing time from his lessons to write short stories on his slate for the amusement of his companions. He entered Washington and Lee University when he was only sixteen years old. He remained there three years, and then after spending a little time in Kentucky decided to enter the law department of the University of Virginia in 1873. He finished the work there in about half the time usually required, and began practising in Richmond, where he remained until 1893. Page had always felt the charm of times gone by. He tried to follow the law faithfully; but more and more strongly came the call to picture artistically “a civilization which, once having sweetened the South, has since well nigh perished from the earth.” He yearned for the old plantation life,--the stately mansions of his forefathers, the grandeur to which those men and women of other days attained, and the overgrown fence rows and fields of his own country home. Finally he decided to write. “Marse Chan” was published in 1884, and won the author immediate recognition. People of both the North and South were enthusiastic about it. The author himself tells how he came to write this tale: “Just then a friend showed me a letter which had been written by a young girl to her sweetheart in a Georgia regiment, telling him that she had discovered that she loved him, after all, and that if he would get a furlough and come home she would marry him; that she had loved him ever since they had gone to school together in the little schoolhouse in the woods. Then, as if she feared such a temptation might be too strong for him, she added a postscript in these words: ‘Don’t come without a furlough; for if you don’t come honorably I won’t marry you.’ This letter had been taken from the pocket of a private dead on the battlefield of one of the battles around Richmond, and, as the date was only a week before the battle occurred, its pathos struck me very much. I remember I said ‘The poor fellow got his furlough through a bullet.’ The idea remained with me, and I went to my office one morning and began to write ‘Marse Chan,’ which was finished in about a week.” “In Ole Virginia,” a collection of three stories of negro life and character, was published in 1887. This is perhaps his most characteristic work. Many stories, essays, and poems followed. Uncle Billy in Page’s story “Meh Lady” is a distinct creation. At the wedding of his mistress and the Union captain in the old, dismantled home, the minister asks, “Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?” His lady is without a relative, and Uncle Billy sees that it is up to him. But he doesn’t want to take the responsibility; so stepping forward he answers solemnly, “Gord.”