On a worn paper dated 1702 is a plat of Brandon plantation.  It shows that at that time the central portion of the manor-house had not been built as only two disconnected buildings (the present wings) are given.  A part of the sketch is marked “a corner of the garden.”  So, for two hundred years (and who knows how much longer?) there has been that garden by the river.  Off at one side of the old map, we found our landing-place in the woods beside some wavy lines that, a neat clerkly hand informed us in pale brown ink, were the “meanderings of Chippoak Creek.”

Poring so intently over those ancient papers with their great Old English capitals, their stiff flourishes, their quaint abbreviations, we should scarcely have been startled to see a peruked head bend above them and a hand with noisy quill go tracing along the lines of those long-ago “Whereases” and “Be it knowns.”

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.