Skirting the low northern shore, we looked across the river at the high southern one where, through the mist, we could see the town of City Point and the bold promontory that marked where the Appomattox was flowing into the James. Upon the tip of the promontory was the home of the Eppes family, "Appomattox." While the present house is not a colonial one, the estate is one of the oldest in the country. Now, just ahead of us was the Shirley pier on one side of the river and the village of Bermuda Hundred on the other. We headed first for the village, our intention being to get some supplies there. We could not see much of Bermuda Hundred, perhaps because there was not much to see. It consists principally of age, having been founded only four years after the settlement of James Towne. Still, we let the sailor go ashore for butter and eggs, trusting that both would be as modern as possible. Our supplies aboard, Gadabout quickly carried us across the river and landed us at Shirley. [Illustration: THE KITCHEN BUILDING, FIFTY YARDS FROM THE MANOR-HOUSE.] In that last visit to the old home, we went across the quadrangle and into the kitchen building, with its cook-room on one side of the hall and its bake-room on the other. Of course most of the colonial kitchen appointments had long since disappeared; but we were glad to see, in the stone-paved bake-room, the old-time brick ovens. With their cavernous depths, they were quite an object lesson in early Virginia hospitality. And can any modern ranges bake quite as perfectly as did those colonial brick ovens? After a fire of oven-wood had flamed for hours in one of those brick chambers, and at last the iron door had been opened and the ashes swept out, the heated interior was ready to receive the meats and breads and pastry, and to bake them "to a turn." When, in the restoration of Mount Vernon, the kitchen was reached, recourse was had to Shirley's kitchen. Drawings were made of an unusual colonial table, of a pair of andirons with hooks for spits to rest on, and of several other old-time cookery appointments; and, from these drawings, were constructed the duplicates that are now in the Mount Vernon kitchen. It was on our way from the kitchen to the mansion that we came upon another visitor to Shirley. She was short and round and black and smiling and "feelin' tol'ble, thank you, ma'am." This, we learned, was Aunt Patsy. She had "jes heard dat Miss Marion done come home"; and so, arrayed in her best clothes including a spotless checked apron, she had come to "de gre't house" to pay her respects to Mrs. Oliver. Drawn out somewhat for our benefit, she gave her views upon the subject of matrimony. "I been married five times," she said. We were not particularly surprised at that; but were scarcely prepared for the added statement, "an' I done had two husban's."