[Illustration: _An Old-fashioned Grist-Mill._]
I am painfully aware of the inadequacy of my picture. But who could do justice to the truth!
It was owing to all these and some other characteristics that the life was what it was. It was on a charming key. It possessed an ampleness and generosity which were not splendid because they were too genuine and refined.
Hospitality had become a recognized race characteristic, and was practised as a matter of course. It was universal; it was spontaneous. It was one of the distinguishing features of the civilization; as much a part of the social life as any other of the domestic relations. Its generosity secured it a distinctive title. The exactions it entailed were engrossing. Its exercise occupied much of the time, and exhausted much of the means. The constant intercourse of the neighborhood, with its perpetual round of dinners, teas, and entertainments, was supplemented by visits of friends and relatives from other sections, who came with their families, their equipages, and personal servants, to spend a month or two, or as long a time as they pleased. A dinner invitation was not so designated. It was, with more exactitude, termed “spending the day.” On Sundays every one invited every one else from church, and there would be long lines of carriages passing in at the open gates.
It is a mystery how the house ever held the visitors. Only the mistress knew. Her resources were enormous. The rooms, with their low ceilings, were wide, and had a holding capacity which was simply astounding. The walls seemed to be made of india-rubber, so great was their stretching power. No one who came, whether friend or stranger, was ever turned away. If the beds were full--as when were they not!--pallets were put down on the floor in the parlor or the garret for the younger members of the family, sometimes even the passages being utilized. Frequently at Christmas the master and mistress were compelled to resort to the same refuge.
It was this intercourse, following the intermarriage and class feeling of the old families, which made Virginians clannish, and caused a single distinguishable common strain of blood, however distant, to be recognized and counted as kinship.