played by the door-step at drilling; mimic
train-bands marched and counter-marched on
nursery battle-fields, and when a day of fasting
and prayer was set apart in Virginia solemnly
to invoke the aid of Almighty God in the
great undertaking of the war, George Mason
wrote home to a friend: "Tell my dear little
family that I desire my three eldest sons and
my two eldest daughters may attend church in
mourning."

Thus, little children all over the broad land,
from Massachusetts to Georgia, were thrilling
with the joys and sorrows of the public, and
thus, when the Revolution came to an end leav-
ing the States united, it was the good fortune of
Dorothy Payne to belong to the first generation
of patriots, -- of those who grew up with the
ideal of a country; with an intense loyalty, not
to a province, but to a nation. "British oppres-
sion," exclaimed her kinsman, Patrick Henry,
"has effaced the boundaries of the several Colo-
nies; the distinctions between Virginians, Penn-
sylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders,
are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an
American."

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