The gallants doubtless knew and visited their tide-water friends,--the Randolphs, Blands, Harrisons, Byrds, Nelsons, and Carters,--and, like them, followed the gay fashions of the day. They wrote sonnets and acrostics and valentines to their Belindas, Florellas, Fidelias, and Myrtyllas--the real names of Molly, Patsy, Ann, and Mary being reckoned too homespun for the court of Cupid. These gallants wore velvet and much silk; the long vests that Charles the Second had invented as "a fashion for gentlemen of all time"; curled, powdered wigs, silver and gold lace; silken hose and brilliant buckles. Many of them had been educated abroad, or at William and Mary College,--where they had been rather a refractory set, whose enormities must be winked at,--even going so far as to "keep race-horses at ye college, and bet at ye billiard and other gaming tables." Whatever their sins or shortcomings, they were warm-hearted and honorable, and most chivalrous to women. It was fashionable to present locks of hair tied in true-lovers' knots, to tame cardinal-birds and mocking-birds for the colonial damsels, to serenade them with songs and stringed instruments under their windows on moonlight nights, to manufacture valentines of thinnest cut paper in intricate foldings, with tender sentiments tucked shyly under a bird's wing or the petal of a flower. With the youthful dames themselves, in hoop, and stiff bodice, powder and "craped" tresses, who cut watch-papers and worked book-marks for the gallants, we are on terms of intimacy. We know all their "tricks and manners," through the laughing Englishman, and their own letters. An unpublished manuscript still circulates from hand to hand in Virginia, under oath of secrecy, for it contains a tragic secret, which reveals the true character of the mothers of Revolutionary patriots. These letters express high sentiment in strong, vigorous English, burning with patriotism and ardent devotion to the interests of the united colonies--not alone to Virginia. The spelling, and absurdly plentiful capitals, were those of the period, and should provoke no criticism. Ruskin says, "no beauty of execution can outweigh one grain or fragment of thought." Beauty of execution and good spelling, according to modern standards, do not appear in the letters of Mary Ball and her friends, but they are seasoned with many a grain of good sense and thought.