"An Ass was so hardy once as to fall a mopping and Braying at a Lion. The Lion began at first to show his Teeth, and to stomach the Affront. But upon second Thoughts, Well, says he, Jeer on and be an Ass still, take notice only by the way that it is the Baseness of your Character that has saved your Carcass." There was a famous beauty in the family of Spotswood who shared, as we shall see hereafter, in the spirit of her race. This was Kate! She wore, on her high days and holidays, fawn-colored satin, looped over a blue satin petticoat, square bodice and elbow sleeves and ruffles; and her feet, which were extremely small and beautifully formed, were shod in blue satin shoes, with silver buckles. Age did not wither this haughty beauty. Her granddaughter remembered her as she combed a wealth of silver hair, a servant the while holding before her a mirror. Not far from "Pine Grove" was "Traveller's Rest," the most beautiful and significant of all the ambitious names of stately mansions on the Rappahannock. "It should be called," said Byrd Willis, "Saint's Rest--for only _they_ ever go there!" "Traveller's Rest" was part of the "200 acres of land on ye freshes of Rappahannock River" bequeathed to Mary Ball by her father, Joseph Ball. The family of Gray long lived at "Traveller's Rest," and thither in after years, Atcheson Gray brought his child-wife Catherine Willis, the great-granddaughter of Mary Washington. These are only a few of the country gentry among whom Mary Washington lived, and to whom she was related. Time would fail to describe them all--Colonel Thomas Ludwell Lee of "Berry Hill"; "Bellevue" and its occupants; the Brent family at Richland, in Stafford County; "Belle Plaine," the residence of the Waugh family. All these places were in a space of eight or ten square miles, and from generation to generation the sons looked upon the daughters of their neighbor cousins, and found them fair, until the families were knit together in every conceivable degree of kinship. In the town of Fredericksburg Mary Washington had near relatives and friends. Roger Gregory, the merry-hearted, had married a woman as merry-hearted as himself,--Mildred Washington, George Washington's aunt and godmother. Foremost at the races, and first on all occasions of mirth, was Roger Gregory. It has been said that Augustine Washington was optimistic in his temperament, and, like his sister Mildred, conspicuous for cheerfulness--also that from him Betty Washington and her brothers inherited their love for gay, social life--that Mary Washington was always serious, and in her later years almost tragic. She surely had enough, poor lady, to make her so.