The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1905-07-20
THIS MORNINGS GOSSIP
al correspondence from Summer

Special correspondence from Summer
Piazzas.
Tennis courts at country houses are ex-
tremely popular this summer and there
is quite a revival of this beautiful game
which was SO greatly in vogue few
years ago. On many of the courts on
country estates in the mountains the turf
is exquisite. a soft delicious green, vel
vety, smooth, and no country place would
be considered complete without court.
There is an old estate In this neighbor-
hood which has two distinctive attrae-
lions, an old-fashioned English garden
with lockwood and a worry charming Eng
| fish girl whose tennis playing is the talk
| of the whole country side. She and her
| older sister a young matron with two
| lovely blue-eyed children, play so well
that men who have played on many of
the famous courts in the country admit
that they are entirely outmatohed by
these women. They are not athletic look
Ing either, although typically English in
their manner and way of living. They
are both decidedly slender. graceful and
suggest afternoon tea in an old-fashioned
garden. But they are more at home on
a tennis court or horseback and the
younger sister Is considered the best
equestrienne and whip for miles around.
The family keep a magnificent stable. and
all the women in the family have their
own horses and ride with grace and
fearlessness that Is the admiration of
every one who sees them. They take
fences and on hunting parties would never
pause at fordlng the highest creek to be
in at the death. They came over from
England when they were children, ana
their father, and Englishman of birth,
purchased an estate of several thousand
acres in the mountain region or Western
North Carolina and in a most fertile val
ley of the French Broad river. They
| have lived here with other English fam
| lilies and witnessed the gradual awaken
| Ing to the beauties OF the Sapphire coun-
| try that has now turned the tide OF
| summer travel to these mountains. DC.
| casional summers have been spent in
England, and the winters are usually
| passed in Florida. But a greater part OF
the year Is always spent on their North
| Carolina estate, where they entertain. not
at large house parties so mucn. but rath-
| er always having a friend or two for
weeks. instead of crowdlng their house
for only few days.
While they have seen this Sapphire
country develop from a wildly beautiful
wilderness into an American Riviera.
their own life seems entirely unaffected
by the sudden influx of people filling
country houses and inns that have been
built within recent years. Their house
Is like little picture house, and the old
fashioned gardens are just like they were
made when they first laid them off. Ev-
cry afternoon they serve rea at exactly
the same hour from pretty English china,
| and they always take you OUT to see their
English garden. which Is at one side of
the house, and from where a little path
way leads on down to the french Broad
| There is a high bluff and a legend. the
exact spot being shown from where the
romantic maiden jumped to her lover $
| arms This legend might be interesting
| on paper, but to be in full sympathy
with the lovers the story must be told
when you are slipping tea IN an old-fash-
Toned garden within sound of the river S
murmur as 1t sweeps below the bluff.
| w