Brandon to-day keeps up correspondence with relatives and friends in England and on the Continent, reads English papers and magazines, sends cuttings from rosebushes and shrubs across seas, makes visits there and is visited in turn.  So, it was pleasant to have the reading of our own welcome letters diversified by bits of foreign news that came out of the bag for Brandon.  We could imagine an expression of personal interest on the handsome face of Colonel Byrd, as he stood in court costume on the wall above us, when the wrappings were taken from a volume containing the correspondence of his old friend, the Earl of Orrery, and sent by the present Earl to Mrs. Harrison.  In it were some of the Colonel’s letters written from his James River home, and in which he spoke of how his daughters missed the gaieties of the English Court.  The torn wrappings and bits of string were gathered up and a little blaze was made of them behind the old fire-dogs.  Then we were shown more of Brandon.

Up quaint staircases in the wings we went to the roomy bedrooms with their ivy-cased windows, mellow-toned panelling, and old open fireplaces.  As daily living at Brandon is truly in the paths of ancestral worthies, so, at night, there are venerable four-posters, richly carved and dark, to induce eighteenth century dreams in the twentieth century Harrisons.  Massive mahogany wardrobes, bureaus, and washstands are as generations of forebears have used them.

Some of the bedrooms once had small rooms opening off from them, one on either side of the fireplace, each having a window.  An English kinswoman of the family says that such rooms were called “powdering rooms.”  Through holes in the doors, the colonial belles and beaux used to thrust their elaborately dressed heads into these rooms, that they might be powdered in there without the sweet-scented clouds enveloping silks and velvets too.

From bedrooms to basement is a long way; but we would see the old stone bench down there where used to sit the row of black boys to answer bells from these rooms above.  Just over the bench hangs still a tangle of the broken bell wires.  When colonial Brandon was filled with guests, there must often have been a merry jangle above the old stone bench and a swift patter of feet on the flags.  Standing there to-day, one can almost fancy an impatient tinkle.  Is it from some high-coiffured beauty in the south wing with a message that must go post-haste—­a missive sanded, scented, and sealed by a trembling hand and to be opened by one no steadier? or is it perhaps from some bewigged councillor with knee-buckles glinting in the firelight as he waits for the subtle heart-warming of an apple toddy?

Now, we were ready to go home; but we did not start at once.  A stranger going anywhere from Brandon should imitate the cautious railways and have his schedule subject to change without notice.  At the last moment, some new old thing is bound to get between him and the door.  In our case, two or three of them did.