grass and smile into the bold
eyes of Captain O'Neil.

At Rivington's we found tennis, too, and good rackets, and I played one
whole morning with Elsin Grey, nor wearied of her delight that she beat
me easily; though why I permitted it and why her victory gave me
pleasure is more than I can comprehend, I always desiring to appear
well in trials of skill at which it is a shame for gentlemen not to
excel, and not ungallant to do one's best with ladies to oppose.

Every Tuesday, at Bayard's Hill near the pump, a bull was baited; but
that bloody sport, and the matching of dogs, was never to my taste,
although respectable gentlemen of fashion attended.

However, there was racing at many places--at Newmarket on Salisbury
plain, and at Jamaica; also Mr. Lispenard had a fine course at
Greenwich village, near the country house of Admiral Warren, and Mr. De
Lancey another between First and Second streets, near the Bowery Lane;
but mostly we drove to Mr. Rutger's to see the running horses; and I
was ashamed not to bet when Elsin Grey provoked me with her bantering
challenge to a wager, laying bets under my nose; but I could not risk
money and remember how every penny saved meant to some prisoner aboard
the _Jersey_ more than a drop of water to a soul in torment.

And how it hurt me--I who love to please, and who adore in others that
high disregard of expense that I dared now never disregard! And to
appear poor-spirited in her eyes, too! and to see the others stare at
times, and to be aware of quiet glances exchanged, and of meaning eyes!

It was late in July that the cooling change came--a delicious breath
from the Narrows blowing steady as a trade; and the change having been
predicted a week since by Venus, a negro wench of Lady Coleville's, Sir
Peter had wisely taken precaution to send word to Horrock in Flatbush;
and now the main was to be fought at the cockpit in Great George
Street, at the Frenchman's "Coq d'Or," a tavern maintained most
jealously by the garrison's officers, and most exclusive though scarce
decent in a moral sense, it being notorious for certain affairs in
which even the formality of Gretna Green was dispensed with.

Many a daintily cloaked figure stole, masked, to the rendezvous in the
garden under the cherry-trees, and many a duel was fought in the
pleasant meadows to the south which we called Vauxhall; and there I
have seen silent men waiting at dawn, playing with the coffee they
scarce could swallow