ake me jealous?" says she, stamping her foot. "A score
of pretty girls are languishing for a glimpse of you,--Jennie and Bess
Fotheringay, and Betty Tayloe, and Heaven knows how many others. They
are actually accusing me of keeping you trailing. 'La, girls!' said
I, 'if you will but rid me of him for a day, you shall have my lasting
gratitude.'"

And she turned to the spinet and began a lively air. But the taunt
struck deeper than she had any notion of. That spring arrived out from
London on the Belle of the Wye a box of fine clothes my grandfather had
commanded for me from his own tailor; and a word from a maid of fifteen
did more to make me wear them than any amount of coaxing from Mr. Allen
and my Uncle Grafton. My uncle seemed in particular anxious that I
should make a good appearance, and reminded me that I should dress as
became the heir of the Carvel house. I took counsel with Patty Swain,
and then went to see Betty Tayloe, and the Fotheringay girls, and
the Dulany girls, near the Governor's. And (fie upon me!) I was not
ill-pleased with the brave appearance I made. I would show my mistress
how little I cared. But the worst of it was, the baggage seemed to
trouble less than I, and had the effrontery to tell me how happy she was
I had come out of my shell, and broken loose from her apron-strings.

"Indeed, they would soon begin to think I meant to marry you, Richard,"
says she at supper one Sunday before a tableful, and laughed with the
rest.

"They do not credit you with such good sense, my dear," says her mother,
smiling kindly at me.

And Dolly bit her lip, and did not join in that part of the merriment.

I fled to Patty Swain for counsel, nor was it the first time in my life
I had done so. Some good women seem to have been put into this selfish
world to comfort and advise. After Prince George Street with its gilt
and marbles and stately hedged gardens, the low-beamed, vine-covered
house in the Duke of Gloucester Street was a home and a rest. In my eyes
there was not its equal in Annapolis for beauty within and without. Mr.
Swain had bought the dwelling from an aged man with a history, dead
some nine years back. Its furniture, for the most part, was of the
Restoration, of simple and massive oak blackened by age, which I ever
fancied better than the Frenchy baubles of tables and chairs with
spindle legs, and cabinets of glass and gold lacquer which were then
making their way into the fine mansions of our to