The river before her would become a dream-river bearing her away through the portals of the past. The commonplace fabric of her days was forgotten. She was like one of those rare flowers that give their greatest beauty to the night. Without her visions life would have been a maddening monotone; and so she went about the duties of a colonial wife. The early portion of 1776 was a poor thing full of dreariness to Mrs. Billop. She was leaving her girlhood far behind in her walk with Time. Each year was a repetition of the one past. The plantation of one thousand five hundred acres was a little world of its own, and she rarely went beyond its gates. Most of her working hours she spent in her garden, and under her fostering care it became a spot of loveliness. In the circles of roses flanked by humbler flowers and the tall line of lilies that crept like a stately band of pure-souled fairy sentinels down to the riverside she planted some of her own fragrant heart. Sometimes her garden was to her like an only child, and then, again, the relationship was changed, and the garden was the tender mother and she herself the weary thing that sought peace there on a breast of green. But one day a wonderful thing happened. Awakened by the sunlight gilding the narrow panes of her bedroom windows, she heard shouts in the barley-field. "Dey am coming! dey am coming!" the household slaves were calling in merry voices. Mrs. Billop, drawing her curtains, saw in the path leading to the house a body of scarlet-coated cavaliers mounted on mettlesome steeds. It came to her mind that a horseman had dashed over from Richmond a week before, telling of General Howe's arrival. These horsemen must be some of his officers making a tour of the island, she thought. For the first time in many years gentlemen were coming to stop at the manor. A smile crept over her face as she gazed upon them, and then she softly let down the curtain. When the day had advanced another hour by the sundial outside the boxwood grotto a vision stood on the landing at the top of the stairs and spread out the panniers of a long-unused gown. The hall below was filled with the badinage of masculine voices, and the surly Christopher, forced into playing the host, seemed to be performing the part with no poor grace. Black women in India print dresses were passing bowls of summer punch, and from the kitchen came the pungent scents of limes and the redolence of roasting corn. From her vantage-point the wife viewed it all, and then began slowly to descend. As the rustle of the brocade became louder and the odor of attar of roses more perceptible, the noise stopped all of a sudden, and every eye was focussed on the woman garbed as if going to a Franklin ball. Little they knew that she was wearing her wedding attire that had lain folded many years in her mother's cedar chest brought from home.