“Bunker Hill and the embattled farmers, of course,” said Archibald; “but have you seen them since the war?”

“No.  Are they different?”

“They aren’t, but you are.  All of us are.”

Louise was not quite sure that her brother ought to leave the island.  “You are down here for the air, Arch, and the quiet.”

He was impatient.  “Do you think I am going to miss this?”

She frowned and shook her head.  “I don’t want you to miss it.  But it will be going against the doctor’s orders.”

“Oh, hang the doctor, Louise.  Being in Boston with Becky will be like—­wine——­”

But she was not satisfied.  “You always throw yourself into things so—­desperately——­”

“Well, when I lose my enthusiasm I want to—­die.”

“No, you don’t, Arch.  Don’t say things like that.”  Her voice was sharp.

He patted her hand.  “I won’t.  But don’t curb me too much, old girl.  Let me play—­while I can——­”

They arrived in Boston to find a city under martial law, a city whose streets were patrolled by khaki-clad figures with guns, whose traffic was regulated by soldierly semaphores, who linked intelligence with military training, and picturesqueness with both.

For a short season Boston had been in the hands of the mob.  All of her traditions of law and order had not saved her.  It had been her punishment perhaps for leaving law and order in the hands of those who cared nothing for them.  People with consciences had preferred to keep out of politics.  So for a time demagogues had gotten the ear of the people, and chaos had resulted until a quiet governor had proved himself as firm as steel, and soldiers had replaced the policemen who had for a moment followed false gods.

“It all proves what I brought you here to see,” Cope told Becky eagerly.

Coffee was being served in the library of the Meredith mansion on Beacon Street.  The Admiral’s library was as ruddy and twinkling as the little man himself.  He had furnished it to suit his own taste.  A great davenport of puffy red velvet was set squarely in front of a fireplace with shining brasses.  The couch was balanced by a heavy gilt chair also in puffy red.  The mantel was in white marble, and over the mantel was an oil portrait of the Admiral’s wife painted in ’76.  She wore red velvet with a train, and with the pearls which had come down to Becky.  The room had been keyed up to her portrait, and had then been toned down with certain heavy pieces of ebony, a cabinet of black lacquer, the dark books which lined the wall to the ceiling.  The room was distinctly nineteenth-century.  If it lacked the eighteenth-century exquisiteness of the house at Nantucket, with its reminder of austere Quaker prejudices, it was none the less appropriate as a glowing background for the gay old Admiral.

Becky and Cope sat on the red davenport.  It was so wide that Becky was almost lost in a corner of it.  The old butler, Charles, served the coffee.  The coffee service was of repousse silver.  The Admiral would have no other.  It had been given him by a body of seamen when he had retired from active duty.