ing with him. They seldom
came without their ladies and children. What romps we youngsters had
about the old place whilst our elders talked their politics.

In childhood the season which delighted me the most was spring. I would
count the days until St. Taminas, which, as you knew, falls on the first
of May. And the old custom was for the young men to deck themselves out
as Indian bucks and sweep down on the festivities around the Maypole on
the town green, or at night to surprise the guests at a ball and force
the gentlemen to pay down a shilling, and sometimes a crown apiece, and
the host to give them a bowl of punch. Then came June. My grandfather
celebrated his Majesty's birthday in his own jolly fashion, and I had my
own birthday party on the tenth. And on the fifteenth, unless it chanced
upon a Sunday, my grandfather never failed to embark in his pinnace at
the Annapolis dock for the Hall. Once seated in the stern between Mr.
Carvel's knees, what rapture when at last we shot out into the blue
waters of the bay and I thought of the long summer of joy before me.
Scipio was generalissimo of these arrangements, and was always at the
dock punctually at ten to hand my grandfather in, a ceremony in which he
took great pride, and to look his disapproval should we be late. As he
turned over the key of the town house he would walk away with a stern
dignity to marshal the other servants in the horse-boat.

One fifteenth of June two children sat with bated breath in the
pinnace,--Dorothy Manners and myself. Mistress Dolly was then as
mischievous a little baggage as ever she proved afterwards. She was
coming to pass a week at the Hall, her parents, whose place was next to
ours, having gone to Philadelphia on a visit. We rounded Kent Island,
which lay green and beautiful in the flashing waters, and at length
caught sight of the old windmill, with its great arms majestically
turning, and the cupola of Carvel House shining white among the trees;
and of the upper spars of the shipping, with sails neatly furled, lying
at the long wharves, where the English wares Mr. Carvel had commanded
for the return trips were unloading. Scarce was the pinnace brought into
the wind before I had leaped ashore and greeted with a shout the Hall
servants drawn up in a line on the green, grinning a welcome. Dorothy
and I scampered over the grass and into the cool, wide house, resting
awhile on the easy sloping steps within, hand in hand. And then away