I had Jenny to ride the very next day.  Result:  my lady smiled on me more sweetly than ever when I went to Prince George Street, and vowed Jenny had never looked prettier than when she went past the house.  This left my victory in such considerable doubt that I climbed the back wall forthwith in my new top-boots.

“So you looked for her to be angry?” said Patty.

“Most certainly,” said I.

“Unreasoning vanity!” she cried, for she knew how to speak plain.  “By your confession to me you have done this to please her, for she warned you at the beginning it would please her.  And now you complain of it.  I believe I know your Dorothy better than you.”

And so I got but little comfort out of Patty that time.

CHAPTER IX

UNDER FALSE COLOURS

And now I come to a circumstance in my life I would rather pass over quickly.  Had I steered the straight course of my impulse I need never have deceived that dear gentleman whom I loved and honoured above any in this world, and with whom I had always lived and dealt openly.  After my grandfather was pronounced to be mending, I went back to Mr. Allen until such time as we should be able to go to the country.  Philip no longer shared my studies, his hours having been changed from morning to afternoon.  I thought nothing of this, being content with the rector’s explanation that my uncle had a task for Philip in the morning, now that Mr. Carvel was better.  And I was well content to be rid of Philip’s company.  But as the days passed I began to mark an absence still stranger.  I had my Horace and my Ovid still:  but the two hours from eleven to one, which he was wont to give up to history and what he was pleased to call instruction in loyalty, were filled with other matter.  Not a word now of politics from Mr. Allen.  Not even a comment from him concerning the spirited doings of our Assembly, with which the town was ringing.  That body had met but a while before, primed to act on the circular drawn up by Mr. Adams of Massachusetts.  The Governor’s message had not been so prompt as to forestall them, and I am occupied scarce the time in the writing of this that it took our brave members to adopt the petition to his Majesty and to pass resolutions of support to our sister colony of the North.  This being done, and a most tart reply penned to his Excellency, they ended that sitting and passed in procession to the Governor’s mansion to deliver it, Mr. Speaker Lloyd at their head, and a vast concourse of cheering people at their heels.  Shutters were barred on the Tory houses we passed.  And though Mr. Allen spied me in the crowd, he never mentioned the circumstance.  More than once I essayed to draw from him an opinion of Mr. Adams’s petition, which was deemed a work of great moderation and merit, and got nothing but evasion from my tutor.  That he had become suddenly an American in principle I could not believe.  At length I made bold to ask him why our discussions were now omitted.  He looked up from the new play he was reading on the study lounge, with a glance of dark meaning I could not fathom.