e wrinkled
fellow, withered to the bone, wide-eared, mild-eyed. He is my
running mate, sir, and we run sometimes, now this way, now that,
but always at your service, Mr. Renault."

"Are you drunk, or is it a pretense?" I demanded.

"Not _too_ drunk," he replied, with elaborate emphasis. "But once
this matter of Thendara is settled I hope to be so drunk that no
friend of mine need be ashamed of me. Good day, sir. God save our
country!"

"Have a care," I motioned, turning away. And so I left him to enter
the shop and purchase a trinket, thinking it prudent in case any
passer-by had observed how long I lingered.

_July 16th._--Sir Peter not yet returned from Mr. Rutgers. The
name "Thendara" ringing in my ears like a dull bell all night, and
I awake, lying there a-thinking. Somewhere, in some long-forgotten
year, I had heard a whispering echo of that name--or so it seemed
to me--and, musing, I thought to savor a breeze from the pines, and
hear water flowing, unseen, far in the forest silence.

Thendara! Thendara!

The name is not Iroquois--yet it may be, too--a soft, gracious
trisyllable stolen from the Lenape. Lord! how the name intrigues
me, sweetly sonorous, throbbing in my ears--Thendara, Thendara--and
always I hear the pine breeze high blowing and the flowing
undertone of waters.

_July 17th._--Nothing extraordinary. The Hon. Elsin Grey arrived
from Halifax by the Swan packet to visit Sir Peter's family, she
being cousin twice removed to Lady Coleville. I have not seen her;
she keeps her chamber with the migraine. As she comes from her
kinsman, General Sir Frederick Haldimand, Governor of Canada, she
may be useful, being lately untethered from the convent and no more
than seventeen or eighteen, and vain, no doubt, of her beauty, and
so, I conclude, prone to babble if flattered.

Here my journal ended; I dipped my quill into the inkhorn and wrote
slowly:

_July 18th._--Nothing remarkable. The Hon. Elsin Grey still keeps
her chamber. The heat in New York is very great. I am, without
suspicion, sending money through Ennis to our prisoners aboard the
ships in the Wallabout, and next week shall have more for the
unfortunates in the Provost, the prisons, jails, and the
sugar-house--my salary being due on the 20th inst. I have ever in
mind a plan for a general jail