“Why, Richard, my lad,” says he, “you are quite grown since I saw you.  And the little girl that was your playmate,—­Miss Dolly, I mean,—­has outstripped me, egad.  She has become suddenly une belle demoiselle, like a rose that blooms in a night.”

I answered nothing at all.  But I had given much to know whether my stolid manner disconcerted him.  Unconsciously I sought the bluff face above the chimney, depicted in all its ruggedness by the painter of King Charles’s day, and contrasted with the bundle of finery at my side.  Dr. Courtenay certainly caught the look.  He opened his snuff-box, took a pinch, turned on his heel, and sauntered off.

“What did you say, Richard?” asked Mr. Lloyd, coming up to me, laughing, for he had seen the incident.

“I looked merely at the man of Marston Moor, sir, and said nothing.”

“Faith, ’twas a better answer than if you had used your tongue, I think,” answered my friend.  But he teased me a deal that night when Dolly danced with the doctor, and my grandfather bade me look to my honours.  My young lady flung her head higher than ever, and made a minuet as well as any dame upon the floor, while I stood very glum at the thought of the prize slipping from my grasp.  Now and then, in the midst of a figure, she would shoot me an arch glance, as much as to say that her pinions were strong now.  But when it came to the country dances my lady comes up to me ever so prettily and asks the favour.

“Tis a monstrous state, indeed, when I have to beg you for a reel!” says she.

And so was I made happy.

CHAPTER VI

I FIRST SUFFER FOR THE CAUSE

In the eighteenth century the march of public events was much more eagerly followed than now by men and women of all stations, and even children.  Each citizen was ready, nay, forward, in taking an active part in all political movements, and the children mimicked their elders.  Old William Farris read his news of a morning before he began the mending of his watches, and by evening had so well digested them that he was primed for discussion with Pryse, of the opposite persuasion, at the Rose and Crown.  Sol Mogg, the sexton of St. Anne’s, had his beloved Gazette in his pocket as he tolled the church bell of a Thursday, and would hold forth on the rights and liberties of man with the carpenter who mended the steeple.  Mrs. Willard could talk of Grenville and Townshend as knowingly as her husband, the rich factor, and Francie Willard made many a speech to us younger Sons of Liberty on the steps of King William’s School.  We younger sons, indeed, declared bitter war against the mother-country long before our conservative old province ever dreamed of secession.  For Maryland was well pleased with his Lordship’s government.