Robert, eager as always for new scenes, and fresh knowledge, anticipated with curiosity his first sight of Williamsburg, one of the oldest British towns in North America.

He knew that it was not large, but he found it even smaller than he had expected.
He and his comrades reached it on horseback, and they found that it contained only a thousand inhabitants, and one street, straight and very wide.

On this street stood the brick buildings of William and Mary, the oldest college in the country, a new capitol erected in the place of one burned, not long before, and a large building called the Governor's Palace.

It looked very small, very quiet, and very content.
Robert was conscious of a change in atmosphere that was not a mere matter of temperature.

Keen, commercial New York was gone.