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About twelve o'clock, a long cavalcade drove up to Old-York Church.
First came the outriders, in livery, then the body guard of the Governor, in
full uniform. This corps, numbering about twenty-seven men, consisted mostly
of old veterans who had served with the Governor in his continental campaigns,
and one old fellow having a wooden leg. They were a martial looking
band, and had the appearance of having seen service. The Governor's
country establishment had a range of dormitories for these, and stables for
their horses, but he never called them out, except on something like
public occasions. Next came the family coach, drawn by four horses,
and managed by two postillions in livery, and behind which stood two
powdered footmen. The coach contained her ladyship and daughters,
with the Reverend Commissary in his canonicals. Then came
the Governor, flanked on one side by Dr. Evylin, and on the other by
little Bob on his poney. The remainder was composed of the carriages of
visitors, followed by the young gentlemen: and then again by the family
servants, two and two, on horseback, many of them also in livery, and all
scrupulously neat and clean.

We have already said, that it was a beautiful Sabbath morning, accordingly
the road from Temple Farm to York was lined with neatly dressed people,
going to hear the celebrated Divine then at the head of the Episcopal Church
in Virginia. Many were on horseback, but many more on foot, and all filed to
the right and left to let the cavalcade pass. Scarcely a pedestrian but touched
his hat, or bared his head entirely as his Excellency went by, while the
negroes did the same, grinning from ear to ear at the same time, at the display
made by the grooms in livery, and soldiers in uniform. Many a poor
family from the neighborhood of Temple Farm, greeted Kate and Dorothea,
with rude courtesy as they passed.

With all the middle and lower ranks the Governor and his family were very
popular, perhaps for the very reason, that he was now at deadly feud with
some of the largest and most influential families in the land. The time was
now rapidly approaching when this very favor of the plebeian ranks stood him
in great stead. The favorite scheme of his life—one for which he had perilled
his office—his influence—his standing—his fortune, having been accomplished
at last much through their means.

The old Church at York, was built like all those of that period in the shape
of a cross, and out of perhaps the strangest materials that ever entered into
the structure of a sacred edifice, or any other. These are square blocks hewn
from fossil shells, deeply imbedded in a basis of sand or marl stone, giving the
whole structure much the appearance of a toy house, built entirely of shells,
such as is seen often in the shops. Not that there was any thing puerile, or
beneath the dignity of a sacred edifice, in the general appearance of the
whole, for it was highly imposing, and must have looked grey and venerable,
when comparatively of recent structure. It stood on one of the highest
points of the town, commanding a prospect of the city of York, then one of
the first in importance in the Colony.

The party entered the main aisle, and proceeded to the two large pews set
apart for his Excellency's family, with the exception of Kate, who, attended by
Bernard Moore, and followed by a servant bearing an armful of music, entered
the gallery and took her station at the organ.

She greeted most sweetly the bevy of city damsels, forming the choir, and
taking the music from the servant, proceeded to distribute the score of the

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pieces she was about to play. Moore seated himself at a respectable distance
among the masculine voices, but it is questionable, whether his attention was
not too much absorbed by the instrumental music to follow the score very
closely. Kate seeing the old prelate enter, commenced her prelude. Even
the venerable old clergyman seemed lost in a pleasing reverie, while she
attuned the hearts of the congregation to a fitting mood to bow before the
throne of mercy.

It was a beautiful picture, o see that fair young ereature, so full of life,
and health, and high hope, bend in such profound humility at the mercy seat,
her pure white neck bent over the prayer book, and uttering the responses, with
such a heartfelt gratitude, that the words seemed to gush up with the emphasis
of her own fervid conceptions.

It was not so much that she felt the responsibility of her own position and
example at the head of the young ladies of that great Colony, as her own
inborn acknowledgment of the necessity of these stated confessions. A sense
of elevated position, and the force of example, are often talked largely of by
those in high places, but she knew and felt that these, to be of any avail,
must come from the heart; it is then, and only then, they reach the hearts of others.

The preacher chose a subject, in exact accordance not only with her views,
but her devotional feelings at the time. It was the sermon on the mount.
How it chimed in with Kate's previous thoughts, when the old man read
out slowly and solemnly, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for their's is the
Kingdom of Heaven.” It seemed as if her very inmost mind had been penetrated
by the preacher, and that the words of the text were only embodying
her own thoughts in appropriate language.

No better example in all that Church, whether among the gentry or plebeians,
could have been found of the very spirit blessed, than that fair daughter
of Virginia's aristocracy. She was indeed poor in spirit, as contra-distinguished
from mean in spirit. Much of her very grace and beauty, came
from that sweet humility, which seemed to be all unconscious of the graces
it inspired. A beautiful maiden, without the true Christian graces, is only a
beautiful animal at last, from the Venus de Medici to Pocahontas, before her
baptism; it requires the finishing touch of the divine spirit upon the heart, before
even the person becomes really lovely, in the highest acceptation of the term,
and that very grace spoken of by the preacher, she had; that humble, self-condemning,
self-sacrificing spirit, which seeks the lowest seat in the synagogue.
Kate Spotswood was a Christian; but she was scarcely conscious of
it, so truly had she taken to heart the first words of the sermon on the mount.
She had never even been confirmed, for the Commissary had not that power,
and as to her being a professed disciple, she never even dared to think herself
good enough. Often, during that solemn and heart-searching sermon, did the
silent tears steal down her unconscious face, and when it was concluded, she
looked round like one just waked up from a moving dream, so absorbed had
she been.

Bernard Moore, sad, wicked dog, as we fear our readers will consider him,
was sitting, leaning his head upon his hand, and gazing at the devout beauty,
and tracing the pearly dreps that stole from her eyelids with a true sympathy.
“How beautiful are the poor in spirit,” thought he. He admired religion
exceedingly, when the operations upon the heart, and mind, and person, were
thus exhibited; and, to do him justice, he had as high reverence for things
holy, as most of his order; but he was a gay young man of fortune for all
that. We shall see whether Kate proselyted him, as we progress with our
narrative.

“What an excellent sermon,” said she, as taking Bernard's arm in the gallery
to join her family, “it seemed to me, that I could see our Saviour's figure
in all its glorious majesty, proclaiming such welcome doctrines to the sons

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and daughters of affliction on the earth, and such an unwelcome one to the
self-sufficient among the great and worldly-minded.”

“Excellent, indeed,” said he, “I never enjoyed a sermon more in my life,
and it was beautifully illustrated.”

“Yes, the imagery was grand indeed; that description of the mountain
scene must have touched papa upon a tender chord?”

“I did not allude to that exactly,” said Moore, slily “I meant rather to say,
that it was most happily personified.”

“Yes, I agree with you there too: never was precept better borne out by
personal example. Dear, good Dr. Blair, I love him almost as well as my
own father.”

“Still you do not take my meaning, though I agree with you on that point too.”

“To whom, then, do you allude?” looking enquiringly into his smiling
face, “not to me, surely?”

“Exactly and to no one else.”

“That is a far strained compliment, Mr. Moore; too much at variance with
truth and honesty for me to accept any part of it. How little you know my
heart, if you suppose me poor in spirit, in the true meaning of the preacher.
How little do you know its rebellion, its pride, its vanity, its self-deception, its
disingeniousness to others—me, poor in spirit, indeed! Why, I was suffering
the pains of self-condemnation, during the whole sermon, for lacking that
greatest essential in the Christian character, that very poverty of spirit so
admirably described.

By this time they had arrived at the door of the carriage, and Moore helped
her in, where the other ladies were already seated, and then mounted his
own horse, held ready by his servant, and followed on as they had come.

During their return to Temple Farm, the company had an accession of
Henry Lee, Esq. He was a tall, elegantly dressed young man, about the
same age as Moore and Carter, but with rather more form and ceremony in
his address, and rather more studied attention to his toilet, than distinguished
either of them. His features were large and sharp, but well formed, and
indicative of more than ordinary mental power. His hair was harsh and frizzled,
and set close to his head, so as to give it rather a clean cut, statuary
look. When he smiled, the man shone out in his own identity. His teeth
were very regular, except two projecting tusks at each corner, which gave a
harsh expression to his whole physiognomy, so that when he gave himself
up to the freest mood of relaxation, he appeared in reality more forbidding, than
when his face was in entire repose, for in the former case, there was a classic
air of high birth and breeding, under which the other peculiarities were
hidden. One single such guest, throws a damper over a whole company,
however much disposed to glee and hilarity. It is like a stream of cold air
blowing into a warm room, pile on the combustibles as much as you will, and
still the same chilling sensation comes over you.

How stately rode the representative of all the Lee's that day, followed by
two servants in livery, one bearing a portmanteau strapped to his saddle, as
large as a modern travelling appendage of the same sort for a whole family.

“Mama,” said Dorothea, her eye still fastened on the pompous young cavalier,
his cocked hat perched to its highest elevation upon his head. “Mama,
do you think Mr. Henry Lee is very poor in spirit?”

The old Commissary tried to look very grave, so as to suppress a fast coming
smile, while Lady Spotswood, looked out of the opposite window of the
carriage, so as to get her eye the farthest possibly removed from the person
spoken of, and thus smooth down her gravity before she replied.

“You should not apply the sermon just preached, to others, child, but to
yourself; do you not recollect the Pharisee?”

“La, mama, you have made the case worse, who could look at that young

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gentleman now, and not imagine to himself, that he was saying `Lord I thank
thee that I am not as other men.”'

The Commissary was compelled to laugh in spite of himself, in which
Kate and her mother now, joined with hearty good will. The picture was
too true and too happily applied, to be resisted; it was like a fortunate stroke
of a painter's pencil, which completes the likeness, and little Dorothea sat
and viewed her work, with a complacency, which nearly upset the prelate
every time he turned towards her. Now tossing her head—exactly as the
gentleman mentioned, tossed his, and now waving a hand with a majestic air,
and presently inserting a thumb under the edge of her stomacher, as he placed
his in the arm hole of his vest. So inimitable was her mimicry, that the good
Commissary begged her to desist, lest he should arrive at home, in a plight
very unbecoming a minister of the gospel, just descended from the sacred
desk.

Even after a long silence, there was a flushed appearance of the whole four,
when they alighted from the carriage, which excited the curiosity of Moore.
He wondered what could have changed their mood so suddenly after he left
them. Kate would not, or could not tell, but broke away and ran into the
house, referring him to Dorothea for an explanation. Dorothea promised at
some other time, that she would go over the whole story, but now she could
not, for papa was shaking his finger at her. “Don't you know,” she whispered,
“that Mr. Lee has a vote in the house of Burgesses.” Papa says I
must learn to be a politician, or I shall frighten away all his political friends.

The party separated to dress for dinner, that great affair of the twenty-four
hours in the Old Dominion.