gentlemen, and stood in careless conversation with the patroon, while
old Cato disembarrassed him of cloak and hat.

Sir John Johnson, son of the great Sir William, as I first saw him was a
man of less than middle age, flabby, cold-eyed, heavy of foot and hand.
On his light-colored hair he wore no powder; the rather long queue was
tied with a green hair-ribbon; the thick, whitish folds of his double
chin rested on a buckled stock.

For the rest, he wore a green-and-gold uniform of very elegant
cut--green being the garb of his regiment, the Royal Greens, as I
learned afterwards--and his buff-topped boots and his metals were
brilliant and plainly new.

When the patroon named me to him he turned his lack-lustre eyes on me
and offered me a large, damp hand.

In turn I was made acquainted with the several officers in his
suite--Colonel John Butler, father of Captain Walter Butler, broad and
squat, a withered prophecy of what the son might one day be; Colonel
Daniel Claus, a rather merry and battered Indian fighter; Colonel Guy
Johnson, of Guy Park, dark and taciturn; a Captain Campbell, and a
Captain McDonald of Perth.

All wore the green uniform save the Butlers; all greeted me with
particular civility and conducted like the respectable company they
appeared to be, politely engaging me in pleasant conversation, desiring
news from Florida, or complimenting me upon my courtesy, which, they
vowed, had alone induced me to travel a thousand miles for the sake of
permitting my kinsmen the pleasure of welcoming me.

One by one the gentlemen retired to exchange their spurred top-boots for
white silk stockings and silken pumps, and to arrange their hair or
stick a patch here and there, and rinse their hands in rose-water to
cleanse them of the bridle's odor.

They were still thronging the gun-room, and I stood alone in the
drawing-room with Sir George Covert, when a lady entered and courtesied
low as we bowed together.

And truly she was a beauty, with her skin of rose-ivory, her powdered
hair a-gleam with brilliants, her eyes of purest violet, a friendly
smile hovering on her fresh, scarlet mouth.

"Well, sir," she said, "do you not know me?" And to Sir George: "I vow,
he takes me for a guest in my own house!"

And then I knew my cousin Dorothy Varick.

[Illustration: "SHE SUFFERED US TO SALUTE HER HAND".]

She suffered us to salute her hand, gazing the while about her
indifferently; and, as I released her slender f