Page:The Ladies of the White House.djvu/95

Rh walls, all covered with ivy and ancient moss, enclose gardens. The one on the right of the house was once filled with costly ornamental plants from the tropical climes, and in which was the green-house; but the box trees have grown high and irregular, and the creepers are running wild over what hardy rose bushes still survive to tell of a past existence of care and beauty. In the lifetime of Mrs. Washington, her home must have been very beautiful, "ere yet time's effacing fingers had traced the lines where beauty lingered." It is even now a splendid old place, but rapidly losing the interest it once had. The estate has passed out of the family, and the furniture has been removed by descendants, to whom it was given: much that lent a charm to the place is gone, and the only interesting object, save the interior of the mansion itself, is the key of the Bastile, presented by Lafayette, and hanging in a case on the wall. Portions of the house are closed, and the stairway in the front hall is barricaded to prevent the intrusion of visitors. The room in which Mrs. Washington died, just above the one occupied by her husband, was locked, and we did not view the room in which she suffered so silently, and from which her freed spirit sought its friend and mate.

The small windows and low ceilings, together with the many little closets and dark passage-ways, strike one strangely who is accustomed to the mansions of modern times; but these old homesteads are numerous throughout the "Old Dominion," and are the most precious of worldly possessions to the descendants of