A Union

Libby Copeland (thanks, Leah): The nation's first family tree is about to gain a new branch. The future in-laws, it turns out, are not unlike the Bushes.

Henry Hager, 29, who was engaged to Jenna Bush, 25, in August, hails from a world of good breeding and foregone conclusions. His parents, who live in the West End of Richmond, are staples of their society. Like the Bushes, with their prominent forebears and their best schools, the Hagers are a Good Family, in the old sense of the phrase.

Like many old cities, Richmond has changed -- and it hasn't. Many of the trappings of the Hagers' lives pay homage to the way Richmond once was. Henry's parents, John and Maggie, are regulars on the cocktail party circuit and members of the Country Club of Virginia near their house. Margaret Chase Hager, 66, the product of prep schools and Richmond's debutante culture, was raised by an almost mythic woman who -- as one of Henry Hager's first cousins remembers it -- rode sidesaddle on a white horse she called Lady Godiva, and never wore a pair of pants in her life.

(Somehow, Good Families always have good legends.)