Just as tall oaks from little acorns grow, so a personal affront may sow the seed of a great war or break a great alliance, and Dinwiddie knew it.
The governor, assisted by his wife and two daughters, entertained at his house, and Robert, Tayoga, Willet, and Grosvenor, arrayed in their best, attended, forming conspicuous figures in a great crowd, as the Virginia gentry, also clad in their finest, attended.

Robert, with his adaptable and imaginative mind, was at home at once among them.

He liked the soft southern speech, the grace of manner and the good feeling that obtained.

They were even more closely related than the great families of New York, and it was obvious that they formed a cultivated society, in close touch with the mother country, intensely British in manner and mode of thought, and devoted in both theory and practice to personal independence.
As the spring was now well advanced the night was warm and the windows and doors of the Governor's Palace were left open.

Negroes in livery played violins and harps while all the guests who wished danced.