If man or woman, white or black, fell sick on the place, it was Patty herself who tended them.  She knew the virtue of every herb in the big chest in the storeroom.  And at table she presided over her father’s guests with a womanliness that won her more admiration than mine.  Now that the barrister was become a man of weight, the house was as crowded as ever was Carvel Hall.  Carrolls and Pacas and Dulanys and Johnsons, and Lloyds and Bordleys and Brices and Scotts and Jennings and Ridouts, and Colonel Sharpe, who remained in the province, and many more families of prominence which I have not space to mention, all came to Gordon’s Pride.  Some of these, as their names proclaim, were of the King’s side; but the bulk of Mr. Swain’s company were stanch patriots, and toasted Miss Patty instead of his Majesty.  By this I do not mean that they lacked loyalty, for it is a matter of note that our colony loved King George.

I must not omit from the list above the name of my good friend, Captain Clapsaddle.

Nor was there lack of younger company.  Betty Tayloe, who plied me with questions concerning Dorothy and London, but especially about the dashing and handsome Lord Comyn; and the Dulany girls, and I know not how many others.  Will Fotheringay, when he was home from college, and Archie Brice, and Francis Willard (whose father was now in the Assembly) and half a dozen more to court Patty, who would not so much as look at them.  And when I twitted her with this she would redden and reply:  “I was created for a housewife, sir, and not to make eyes from behind a fan.”  Indeed, she was at her prettiest and best in the dimity frock, with the sleeves rolled up.

’Twas a very merry place, the manor of Gordon’s Pride.  A generous bowl of punch always stood in the cool hall, through which the south winds swept from off the water, and fruit and sangaree and lemonade were on the table there.  The manor had no ball-room, but the negro fiddlers played in the big parlour.  And the young folks danced till supper time.  In three months Patty’s suppers grew famous in a colony where there was no lack of good cooks.

The sweet-natured invalid enjoyed these festivities in her quiet way, and often pressed me to partake.  So did Patty beg me, and Mr. Swain.  Perhaps a false sense of pride restrained me, but my duties held me all day in the field, and often into the night when there was curing to be done, or some other matters of necessity.  And for the rest, I thought I detected a change in the tone of Mr. Fotheringay, and some others, tho’ it may have been due to sensibility on my part.  I would put up with no patronage.