As we neared a ridge of meadowland, a pastoral for a Schenck took shape in the fog cloud before us. Scattered groups of sheep appeared close at hand, and, faintly visible beyond them, a denser mass of moving white. No tree nor landmark was to be seen; just set into the soft whiteness, showing mistily, was the snowy flock itself. Sheep grazed in groups, the tan shaded slope in faint colouring beneath them. Here and there a mother turned her head to call back anxiously for the bleating lambkin lost behind the white curtain; and, dim and grotesque, the awkward strayling would come gamboling into sight. Near by on a little hillock, a single sheep stood with its head thrown up, a ghostly lookout. The hidden sun made the haze faintly luminous about this wandering flock of cloudland. We were not the first to move and to break the picture. As we gained higher ground, a breeze was stirring and the fog was beginning to lift. When we reached the edge of the Shirley homestead and passed the turreted dove-cote, the near-by objects had grown quite distinct. But out on the river the fog yet lay dense; and two boats somewhere in the impenetrable whiteness were calling warningly to each other. Now we went on toward the manor-house that loomed against a soft background of river fog. The mansion is wholly unlike either Brandon or Westover, being a massive square building without wings. It is two and a half stories high, with a roof of modified mansard style pierced with many dormer windows. It has both a landward and a riverward front, and both alike. Each front has a large porch of two stories in Georgian design with Doric columns. The walls of the house are laid in Flemish bond, black glazed bricks alternating with the dull red ones. While both the roof and the porches are departures from the original lines of the house, yet they are departures that have themselves attained a dignified age of about a century and a quarter. Always, in the consideration of colonial homes, Shirley is regarded as one of the finest examples. This means much more than at first appears. For the mansions with which Shirley is usually compared, were built from half a century to a century later. Continuing along the road as we studied the home, we were led around to the landward front and into the midst of the ancient messuage. [Illustration: RIVERWARD FRONT OF SHIRLEY.] We stood in a great open quadrangle, having the house at one end, the distant barns at the other; on one side the kitchen, a large two-story building, and on the other side a similar building used for storage and for indoor plantation work. A high box hedge ran across from one of these side buildings to the other, dividing the long quadrangle into halves, one part adjacent to the house and the other to the barns.