Writers of the period explain these multiplied marriages by the necessity of a protector for every woman owning land to be cultivated by negro slaves and indented servants, and on the other hand the woful state of a large family of young children left motherless at the mercy of those servants. The new master and the new mother became a necessity. It sometimes happened that the newly contracting parties had already many children from the three or four previous marriages. These must now be brought under one sheltering roof. The little army must be restrained by strict government; hence the necessity for the stern parental discipline of colonial times. "It is gratifying, my dear," said an amiable patriarch, "to find that _your_ children, _my_ children, and _our_ children can live so peacefully together," nobody knowing so well as the patriarch and the children at what price the peace had been purchased. Thus it can be easily seen how maddening an enterprise is the attempt to trace Virginia relationships, and how we so often lose a woman and give her over as dead to find her resurrected under a new name. We once lost Mary Washington's sister Hannah (Ball) Travers. She turned up at last as Mrs. Pearson! To sort and label and classify Virginia cousins means nervous prostration. In the families of Thornton, Carter, and their kin, it means more! Madness lies that way! The spinster of uncertain age, known irreverently as an "old maid," was a rare individual in colonial Virginia. We all know Colonel Byrd's "Miss Thekky, mourning her virginity." We really cannot name another. When a good man, addressing himself to the compilation of family records for his children, was constrained to admit that one was unmarried, he made haste to declare that she "lived single by her own choice." Colonel Byrd Willis says of his daughter Mary, "She is unmarried--but by her own choice. It will be a fine fellow who can tempt her to leave her home. She has not seen him yet!" He goes on to enumerate her social triumphs. There had been a "Bouquet Ball," of which a certain commodore was made king. He chose Miss Mary Willis, and bestowed upon her the bouquet. A foot-note informs us that she isn't single any more! She has married the commodore! [Illustration: Colonel Byrd.]