But, instead, something quite different came out of the past: something very soft and feminine fell over the blotched old papers--the treasured silk brocade in which Evelyn Byrd was presented at the Court of George I. Like a shadowy passing of that famous colonial belle, was the sweep of the faint-flowered gown. A fabric of the patch-and-powder days is this, with embroidered flowers in old blues and pinks clustered on its deep cream ground. Its fashioning is quaint: the Watteau pleat in the back with tiny tucks each side at the slim waist line, the square low neck, the close elbow sleeves, the open front to display the quilted petticoat. Mingled feelings rise at sight of the soft brocade whose bodice once throbbed with the happy heartbeats of this Virginia maiden, making pretty curtsy in rosy pleasure, the admiration of the English Court. Perhaps in this very gown she danced the stately minuet with young Charles Mordaunt; perhaps hid beneath its fluttering laces his first love sonnet. So, in those far colonial days it knew the life of her. The grace of the young body seems still to linger in the pale, shimmering folds; and the clinging touch of the old court gown is like a timid appeal for remembrance. After that rainy afternoon at the manorhouse, we were storm-bound aboard Gadabout for a few days. At last the weather cleared and we again thought of a trip ashore. There was yet a brisk wind; and for some time our rowboat rocked alongside, industriously bumping the paint off the houseboat, while we sat on the windlass box enjoying the fresh breeze in our faces and watching the driftage catch on our anchor chain. Of course one can sit right down on the bobby bow itself with feet hanging over, and poke with a stick at the flotsam. But that is only for moments of lazy leisure, not for a time when one is about to visit Brandon. At last, we were ashore and again in the "woods-way." That was the day we got into trouble, all owing to Nautica's passion for ancient tombstones. We were half way to Brandon when she concluded that it was not the manor-house that she wished to visit first, but the old graveyard. We stopped at the manager's house to inquire the way. The road led inland. It soon dipped to a bridge over a little stream, where the banks were masses of honeysuckle whose fragrance followed us up the slope beyond. On a little farther was a field with a grove in the centre of it that we knew, from the directions given us, contained the cemetery. We entered the field, and had got almost to the grove when Nautica suddenly stopped, stared, and turned pale. The Commodore's glance followed hers; whereupon, he uttered brave words calculated to reassure the timid feminine heart, and in a voice that would have been steady enough if his knees had kept still. The bull said nothing.