First Sentence

"ON a plateau about a mile from the south bank of the Potomac River, in the old Colonial County of Westmoreland, in what used to be known as the "Northern Neck," that portion of Virginia which Charles II. in his heedlessness once undertook to grant to his friends and favorites, Culpeper and Arlington, stands a massive brick mansion, one of the most impressive piles of brick on this continent, which even in its dilapidation looks as though it might have been built by Elizabeth and bombarded by Cromwell."