r heels in your
President's halls. I call it mere presumptuousness. I cannot look upon
this country as anything but a province to be taken back again when
England is ready. And it may be, since so much turbulence and
discourtesy seem growing here, that chance will not wait long in the
coming!"

"It may be, Mr. Merry," said Aaron Burr. "My own thoughts you know too
well for need of repetition. Let us only go softly. My plans advance
as well as I could ask. I was just wondering," he added, "whether
those two young people really were together there at the old mill--and
whether they were there for the first time."

"If not, 'twas not for the last time!" rejoined the older man. "Yonder
young man was made to fill a woman's eye. Your daughter, Mr. Burr,
while the soul of married discreetness, and charming as any of her sex
I have ever seen, must look out for her heart. She might find it
divided into three equal parts."

"How then, Mr. Minister?"

"One for her father----"

Aaron Burr bowed.

"Yes, her father first, as I verily believe. What then?"

"The second for her husband----"

"Certainly. Mr. Alston is a rising man. He has a thousand slaves on
his plantations--he is one of the richest of the rich South
Carolinian planters. And in politics he has a chance--more than a
chance. But after that?"

"The third portion of so charming a woman's heart might perhaps be
assigned to Captain Meriwether Lewis!"

"Say you so?" laughed Burr carelessly. "Well, well this must be looked
into. Come, I must tell my son-in-law that his home is in danger of
being invaded! Far off in his Southern rice-lands, I fear he misses
his young wife sometimes. I brought her here for the sake of her own
health--she cannot thrive in such swamps. Besides, I cannot bear to
have her live away from me. She is happier with me than anywhere else.
Yes, you are right, my daughter worships me."

"Why should she not? And why should she not ride with a gallant at
sunrise for an early cup of coffee, egad?" said the older man.

Burr did not answer, and they rode on.

In the opposite direction there rode also the young man of whom they
spoke. And at about the time that the two came to the old mill and
saw Theodosia Alston sitting there--her face still cast down, her
eyes gazing abstractedly into her untasted cup on the little
table--Meriwether Lewis was pulling up at the iron gate which then
closed the opening in the stone wall encircling the modest offic