e making such handsome progress in
your work. I said: 'You do not think of the rapid progress I am making
toward old age. You forget, too, that I need a husband as badly as
_The Gazette_ needs a philosopher. I rebel. You have made me an
American--you and Jack, I will no longer consent to taxation without
representation. Year by year I am giving up some of my youth and I am
not being consulted about it.'

"Said he: 'I would demand justice of the king. I suppose he thinks
that his country can not yet afford a queen, I shall tell him that he
is imitating George the Third and that he had better listen to the
voice of the people.'

"Now, my beloved hero, the English girl who is not married at nineteen
is thought to be hopeless. There are fine lads who have asked my
father for the right to court me and still I am waiting for my brave
deliverer and he comes not. I can not forget the thrush's song and the
enchanted woods. They hold me. If they have not held you--if for any
reason your heart has changed--you will not fail to tell me, will you?
Is it necessary that you should be great and wise and rich and learned
before you come to me? Little by little, after many talks with the
venerable Franklin, I have got the American notion that I would like to
go away with you and help you to accomplish these things and enjoy the
happiness which was ours, for a little time, and of which you speak in
your letters. Surely there was something very great in those moments.
It does not fade and has it not kept us true to their promise? But,
Jack, how long am I to wait? You must tell me."

This letter went to the heart of the young man. She had deftly set
before him the gross unfairness of delay. He felt it. Ever since the
parting he had been eager to go, but his father was not a rich man and
the family was large. His own salary had been little more than was
needed for clothing and books. That autumn it had been doubled and the
editor had assured him that higher pay would be forthcoming. He
hesitated to tell the girl how little he earned and how small, when
measured in money, his progress had seemed to be. He was in despair
when his friend Solomon Binkus arrived from Virginia. For two years
the latter had been looking after the interests of Major Washington out
in the Ohio River country. They dined together that evening at The
Crooked Billet and Solomon told him of his adventures in the West, and
frontier stories of the