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THE VAA MESS RIVER (SP RANTA TION BELT phoenix, the golden spur and Lady of Leeds in proper succession. No one knows just who it was who planted the multi-great-grandparents of this present wealth of jonguils which mantlé Bassett Hall in a robe of gold in April as year follows year. So profligate have they become in number, so far-spreading have they-.gone, that the right has been given the Williamsburg Civic League to take from them enough bulbs to naturalize on the esplanade which extends along Duke of Gloucester Street. Along the path which leads from the lane to the house, a chain of cowslips links the present to the past, and fragrant lilies stand together like angels in a dream. Bassett Hall is, in truth, the envied possessor of what many of us dream of, but few fortunates possess—'‘a lily avenue climbing to the doors.”’ Adjoining this lawn is the former home of Peyton Randolph, Speaker of the House of Burgesses and President of the Continental Congress. The acreage here has dwindled with the years and the garden has given way to modern needs of a town, but the same staunch bulbs return season after season. And in August, when the grass is brown and the leaves are withering, masses of tiny purple lilies hold up their crowns in loyalty to the first master of the home. Just across the street is the Gault house, built just when, and by whom, no one knows, but rich in its historic lore and legend. At the Thompson house, on Nicholson Street, Patrick Henry lived when he practiced law in Williamsburg. One of its tiny —attic windows, the outlook from which is now so restful, was once the scene of frenzied watching against Indian depredations. There is, perhaps, more of a formal garden at this particular place than anywhere else in the little town. Box clumps are scattered here and there among lilacs and snowballs and the early flowering shrub yellow jessamine. Violets and narcissi; iris and ionquils; lilies— the pure Madonna and the tigerish Jamestown lily. The yellow Rose of Texas, known better as the Harrisonti, blooms above beds of bloodroot and hepatica brought from the woodland beyond. (25