Near the Masons, at "Marlboro," lived John Mercer, a lawyer of fine talents and attainments, and owner of one of the best private libraries in the colony. Virginia bibliophiles still boast in their collections some of his books containing his heraldic book-plate. There was a George in his family, one year younger than George Washington. Their homes were just sixteen miles apart--a mere nothing of distance, as neighborhoods were reckoned in those days--and both in Overwharton parish. The Mercers were lifelong friends of Mary Washington. General Mercer died in her grandson's arms. Judge James Mercer wrote her will. Then, not far from John Mercer's, lived one of the largest landed proprietors in Stafford, a prominent burgess and planter of his day, Raleigh Travers--of Sir Walter Raleigh's family--and married to Mary Washington's half-sister, Hannah Ball. They were founders of one of Virginia's great families, "distinguished in later years for breeding, learning, and eloquence." Two miles from "Marlboro" lived one of their daughters, Sarah, married to Colonel Peter Daniel, of the "Crow's Nest." Then came "Boscobel," the residence of Thomas Fitzhugh, the father of a family of interesting young people. Susannah Fitzhugh still smiles to us from these pages in her rich robe over a pearl embroidered skirt and bodice of white satin, with a necklace of pearls festooned over her fair bodice. She was just three years younger than her beautiful cousin Elizabeth, who lived at "Belle-Air" (her mother was Alice Thornton), and whose portrait, painted by Hesselius, presents the fashionable dress of her day. The gown is of fawn color, square corsage, elbow sleeves with lace ruffles (like Susannah's), the hair carried smoothly back from her brows, piled high over a cushion, and dressed with strings of pearls. The Fitzhughs did not quite "own the earth" in their region,--Lord Fairfax did that,--but they owned a goodly portion of it: "Eagle's Nest" in Stafford County, "Somerset" in King George, "Boscobel," "Belle-Air," and "Chatham" in Stafford, "Ravensworth" in Fairfax. At the latter General Custis Lee, an honored descendant of this honored race, sits to-day under the trees his fathers planted. In the Fitzhugh pedigree the Thorntons crop up again and again. One may sink a mine in any Virginia genealogy and he will encounter the names of all these neighbors of Mary Washington. At "Salvington" lived the Seldens, to whom Mary Washington was bound by ties of close kindred. Mary Ball, daughter of Major James Ball of "Bewdley," in whose arms Mary Washington had hastened to place her son George when one month old, had married John Selden. For his second wife he chose her first cousin, Sarah Ball, whose tombstone may be seen to-day in the woods a mile from Lancaster court-house.