House £sf Garden 
H e was anxious that his son should marry the 
ward, and when the young man refused, the 
thrice-widowed father said, “ Then, Sir, I 
will marry her myself,” and the young ward 
became the fourth wife of Littleton Upshur 
Denis. She outlived him nearly half a century. 
At Snow Hill there are two interesting 
houses of the Spence family, a Scotch Pres¬ 
byterian race long resident in those parts. 
That long occupied by “Judge Tom,” so 
called to distinguish him from his uncle, 
Judge Ara, was built by the father of Judge 
Spence house is “Salem,” the quaint old 
homestead once occupied by his uncle, Lem¬ 
uel Spence, for half his lifetime County 
Register of Wills. He was thrice married 
while yet a comparatively young man, and at 
the wish of the second wife he doubled the 
size of “ Salem.” "Phe old house looks its 
name, “peace,” for it stands a little apart from 
the village with great trees about it, and a 
singular suggestion of quiet in its aspect. 
Its great outside chimneys bespeak the hos¬ 
pitable hearths within. The rooms, which are 
RATCLIFFE MANOR” NEAR EASTON, MARYLAND 
Copyrighted iqo 2 , by Henry Troth 
'Pom, for a long time a physician at Snow 
Hill. It is an ideal village house for such a 
climate. Tong and rather low, but beauti¬ 
fully proportioned, it is surrounded on three 
sides by a two-story pillared veranda. Be¬ 
neath the shadow of the lower veranda, with 
its scrupulously clean brick floor, is the main 
entrance of the house, a great door with an 
admirable fanlight. Behind in a huddle are 
the out buildings that were once the slave 
“quarters,” glisteningwith spotless whitewash. 
Less charming than the Judge Tom 
smaller than one would expect from the out¬ 
ward aspect of the house, are curiously wain¬ 
scoted, and provided with two or three very 
curious old mantels. On a window pane of the 
living-room are the names of several members 
of the family, scratched with a diamond more 
than sixty years ago. 
Strongly characteristic of the Eastern Shore 
houses, whether in Virginia or Maryland, is 
the passage, called the “corridor,” between the 
kitchen, where the house servants lived, and 
the dwelling of the master. In some cases the 
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