“Do the quality not visit you here?” I asked Dorothy.

“Visit us?  No, cousin.  Who is to receive them?  Our mother is dead.”

Cecile said:  “Once they did come, but Uncle Varick had that mistress of Sir John’s to sup with them and they took offence.”

“Mrs. Van Cortlandt said she was a painted hussy—­” began Harry.

“The Van Rensselaers left the house, vowing that Sir Lupus had used them shamefully,” added Cecile; “and Sir Lupus said:  ’Tush! tush!  When the Van Rensselaers are too good for the Putnams of Tribes Hill I’ll eat my spurs!’ and then he laughed till he cried.”

“They never came again; nobody of quality ever came; nobody ever comes,” said Ruyven.

“Excepting the Johnsons and the Butlers,” corrected Sammy.

“And then everybody geths tight; they were here lath night and Uncle Varick is sthill abed,” said little Benny, innocently.

“Will you all hold your tongues?” cried Dorothy, fiercely.  “Father said we were not to tell anybody that Sir John and the Ormond-Butlers visited us.”

“Why not?” I asked.

Dorothy clasped both hands under her chin, rested her bare elbows on the table, and leaned close to me, whispering confidentially:  “Because of the war with the Boston people.  The country is overrun with rebels—­rebel troops at Albany, rebel gunners at Stanwix, rebels at Edward and Hunter and Johnstown.  A scout of ten men came here last week; they were harrying a war-party of Brant’s Mohawks, and Stoner was with them, and that great ox in buckskin, Jack Mount.  And do you know what he said to father?  He said, ’For Heaven’s sake, turn red or blue, Sir Lupus, for if you don’t we’ll hang you to a crab-apple and chance the color.’  And father said, ‘I’m no partisan King’s man’; and Jack Mount said, ‘You’re the joker of the pack, are you?’ And father said, ’I’m not in the shuffle, and you can bear me out, you rogue!’ And then Jack Mount wagged his big forefinger at him and said, ’Sir Lupus, if you’re but a joker, one or t’other side must discard you!’ And they rode away, priming their rifles and laughing, and father swore and shook his cane at them.”

In her eagerness her lips almost touched my ear, and her breath warmed my cheek.

“All that I saw and heard,” she whispered, “and I know father told Walter Butler, for a scout came yesterday, saying that a scout from the Rangers and the Royal Greens had crossed the hills, and I saw some of Sir John’s Scotch loons riding like warlocks on the new road, and that great fool, Francy McCraw, tearing along at their head and crowing like a cock.”

“Cousin, cousin,” I protested, “all this—­all these names—­even the causes and the manners of this war, are incomprehensible to me.”

“Oh,” she said, in surprise, “have you in Florida not heard of our war?”

“Yes, yes—­all know that war is with you, but that is all.  I know that these Boston men are fighting our King; but why do the Indians take part?”