The widow smiled. "Nothing would please him better; but-they have long since given up Josiah for a lost sheep-"

"Black, mother?" She was a trifle relieved at the thought of an interview between Friend Howell, the gentlest of the gentle, and Josiah.

"Brown, not black," said the mother, smiling. "It will someway get settled, my child. Now go early to bed and leave it to thy elders. I shall talk of it to Friend Schmidt."

"Yes, mother." Her confidence in the German gentleman, now for five years their guest, was boundless.

"And say thy prayers with a quiet heart. Thou hast done no wrong. Good night, my child. Ask if Friend de Courval wants anything. Since her son went away, she has been troubled, as who would not be. Another's real cause for distress should make us feel how small a matter is this of ours." She kissed her again, and the girl went slowly up-stairs, murmuring: "He went away and never so much as said good-by to me. I do not think it was civil.”

Meanwhile the mother sat still, with only the click, click of the knittingneedles, which somehow seemed always to assist her to think. She had steadily refused help in money from Uncle Josiah, and now, being as angry as was within the possibilities of a temper radiant with the sunshine of good humor, she rejoiced that she owed Josiah nothing.

"He shall have a piece of my mind," she said aloud, and indeed a large slice would have been a sweetening addition to his crabbed sourness. "Ah, me!" she added, "I must not think of the money; but how easy it would make things!" Not even Schmidt had been permitted to pay more than a reasonable board. No, she would not repine; and now Madame, reluctantly accepting her son's increased wages, had insisted that his room be kept vacant and paid for, and was not to be gainsaid about the needed fur-lined roquelaure she bought for her hostess and the extra pay for small luxuries.

"May God forgive me that I have been unthankful for his goodness," said Mary Swanwick, and so saying put aside her thoughts with her knitting, and sat down to read a little in the book she had taken from the library, to Friend Poul

son's dismay. "Thou wilt not like it, Mary Swanwick." In a minute of mischief young Mr. Willing had told her of a book he had lately read-a French book, amusing and witty. He had left her wishing he could see her when she read it, but self-advised to stay away for a time.

She sat down with anticipative satisfaction. "What hard French!" she thought. "I must ask help of Madame," as she often called her, Friend Courval being, as she saw plainly, too familiar to please her guest. She read on, smiling at the immortal wit and humor of a day long passed. Suddenly she shut the book with a quick movement, and set it aside. "What manner of man was this Rabelais? Friend Poulson should have been more plain with me; and as for Master Willing, I shall write to him, too, a bit of my mind." But she never did, and only said aloud: "If I give away any more pieces of my mind, I shall have none left," and turned, as her diary records, to "The Pilgrim's Progress," of which, she remarked, "an old book by one John Bunyan, much read by Friends and generally approved, ridiculed by many, but not by me. It seems to me good, pious wit, and not obscene like the other. I fear I sin sometimes in being too curious about books." Thus having put on paper her reflections, she went to bed, having in mind a vague and naughty desire to have seen Margaret in the foolish garb of worldly folk.

Margaret, ashamed, would go nowhere for a week, and did more than the needed housework, to Nanny's disgust, whose remembrances were of days of luxury and small need for "quality folks" to dust rooms. The work over, when tired of her labor, Margaret sat out in the winter sunshine in the fur-lined roquelaure, Madame's extravagant gift, and, enraptured, read "The Mysteries of Udolpho," or closing the book, sailed with the Marie, and wondered what San Domingo was like.

Meanwhile the town, very gay just now with dinners Mr. John Adams thought so excessive, and with sleigh-riding parties to Belmont and Cliveden, rang with wild statements of the dressing scene and the lottery. Very comic it was to the young bucks, and, "Pray, Mrs. Byrd, did the garters fit?" "Fie, for shame!" "And

no stays, we hear," wives told their husbands, and once in the London Coffeehouse, in front of which, long ago, Congo slaves were sold and where now men discussed things social, commercial, and political, Schmidt had called a man to stern account and exacted an apology. The gay girls told their Quaker cousins, and at last Friends were of a mind to talk to Mary Swanwick, especially of the lottery.

Before graver measures were taken, it was advisable that one should undertake to learn the truth, for it was felt not to be desirable to discipline by formal measures so blameless a member where clearly there had been much exaggeration of

statement.

Ten days after the dinner at Landsdowne, John Pemberton was met in the hall of the Swanwick house by Mr. Schmidt, both women being out. The German at once guessed the errand of this most kindly of Quaker gentles, and said, "Mr. Pemberton, you are come, I suppose, to speak for Friends of the gossip about these, my own friends. Pray be seated. They are out."

"But my errand is not to thee, who art not of the Society of Friends."

"I am of the society of these friends. I know why you are come. Talk to me." "I am advised in spirit that it may be as well to do so. Thou art a just man. I shall speak."

On this he sat down. It was a singular figure the German saw. The broad, white beaver hat, which the Quaker gentleman kept on his head, was turned up in front and at the back over abundant gray hair. A great eagle nose overhanging a sharp chin, brought near to it by the toothless jaws of age, gave to the side face a queer look of rapacity, contradicted by the refinement and serene kindliness of the full face now turned upon the German.

"Friend Schmidt," he said, "our young friend, we are told, has been unwise and exhibited herself among those of the world in unseemly attire. There are those of us who, like Friend Logan, are setting a bad example in their attire to the young. I may not better state how we feel than in the words of William Penn: 'Choose thy clothes by thine own eye, not by another's; the more simple and plain they are the better; neither unshapely nor fan

tastical, and for use and decency, not for pride.' I think my memory serves me."

"I shall not argue with you, sir, but being in part an eye-witness, I shall relate what did occur," and he told very simply of the rude jest, and of the girl's embarrassment as he had heard it from the mother.

"I see," said Pemberton. "Too much has been made of it. She will hear no more of it from Friends, and it may be a lesson. Wilt thou greet her with affectionate remembrance from an old man and repeat what I have said?"

"And what will Mary Swanwick do with this money won in evil ways?" "I do not know."

"It is well that she should be counseled."

"Do you not think, sir, as a man of sense and a gentleman and more, that it may be well to leave a high-minded woman to dispose of this matter? If she goes wrong, will it not then be time to interfere? There is not a ha'-penny of greed in her. Let her alone."

The Quaker sat still a moment, his lean figure bent over his staff. "Thou art right," he said, looking up. "The matter shall rest, unless worse come of it."

"Why not see Mr. Langstroth about it?" said the German, mischievously inclined. "He is of Friends, I presume."

LXXVI-5

well."

When Mrs. Swanwick heard of this and had talked of it to Margaret, the Pearl said, "We will not take the money, and uncle cannot; and it may go." Her decisiveness both pleased and astonished the mother. It was a maturing woman who thus anticipated Schmidt's advice and her own, and here for a little while the matter lay at rest.

Not all Friends, however, were either aware of what Pemberton had learned or were fully satisfied, so that one day Daniel Offley, blacksmith, a noisy preacher in meetings and sometimes advised of elders to sit down, resolved to set at rest alike his conscience and his curiosity. Therefore, on a February afternoon, being the 22d, and already honored as the birthday of Washington, he found Margaret alone, as luck would have it. To this unusual house, as I have said, came not only statesmen, philosophers, and the rich. Hither, too, came the poor for help, the lesser Quakers, women and men, for counsel or a little sober gossip. All were welcome, and Offley was not unfamiliar with the ways of the house.

He found Margaret alone, and sitting down, began at once and harshly to question her in a loud voice concerning the story of her worldly vanity, and asked why she could thus have erred.

The girl had had too much of it. Her conscience was clear, and Pemberton, whom she loved and respected, had been satisfied, as Schmidt had told them. She grew red, and rising, said: "I have listened to thee; but now I say to thee, Daniel Offley, that it is none of thy business. Go home and shoe thy horses.'

He was not thus to be put down. "This is only to add bad temper to thee other faults. As a Friend and for many of the society, I would know what thee has done with thee devil wages of the lottery."

She looked at him a moment. The big, red, coarse face struck her as comical. Her too often repressed sense of humor helped her, and crying, "Thou canst not shoe my conscience, Daniel Offley," she fled away up-stairs, her laughter ringing through the house, a little hysterical, perhaps, and first cousin to tears. The amazed preacher, left to his meditations, was shocked into taking off his beaver and

She was angry beyond the common, for Schmidt had said it was all of it unwise and meddlesome, nor was the mother better pleased than he when she came to hear of Offley's visit. "I am but half a Friend," she confessed to Schmidt, not liking altogether even the gentler inquiries of John Pemberton.

When on the next Sunday Madame de Courval was about to set out for the Swedes' church, Mrs. Swanwick said, "It is time to go to meeting, my child." "I am not going, mother." "But thou didst not go last First Day." "No. I cannot, mother. May I go

with Madame?"

"Why not?" said Schmidt, looking up from his book. And so the Pearl went to Gloria Dei.

"They have lost a good Quaker by their impertinence," said Schmidt to himself. "She will never again go to meeting." And, despite much gentle urging and much persuasive kindness, this came at last to be her custom, although she still wore unchanged her simple Quaker garb. Madame at least was pleased, but also at times thoughtful of the future when the young vicomte would walk between them down Swanson Street to church.

There was, of course, as yet no news of the Marie, and many bets on the result of the bold venture were made in the coffeehouses, for now, in March of the year '93, the story of the king's death and of war between France and England began further to embitter party strife and alarm the owners of ships. If the vicomtesse was anxious, she said no word of what she felt. Outside of the quiet home where she sat over her embroidery there was an increase of political excitement, with much abuse, and in the gazettes wild articles over classic signatures. With Jacobin France for exemplar, the half-crazed republicans wore tricolor cockades, and the bonnet rouge passed from head to head at noisy feasts when "Ça Ira" and the "Marseillaise" were sung. Many persons were for war with England, but the wiser of both parties were for the declaration of neutrality, proclaimed of late amid the fury of extreme party sentiment. The new French minister eagerly looked for by the republicans was soon to come and

to add to the embarrassments of the Government whatever of mischief insolent folly could devise.

Meanwhile the hearts of two women were on the sea, and the ship-owners were increasingly worried; for now goods for French ports would be seized on the ocean and sailors claimed as English at the will of any British captain.

Amid all this rancor of party and increase of anxiety as to whether America was to be at war or peace, the small incident of a girl's change of church was soon forgotten. It was not a rare occurrence, and only remarkable because, as Schmidt said to Gainor Wynne somewhat later, it proved what a convincing preacher is anger.

Mistress Wynne had come home from Boston after a week's travel, and being tired, went to bed and decided to have a doctor, with Chovet for choice, because Rush had little gossip. She was amply fed with it, including the talk about the change of dress and the lottery. So good was the effect that, on the doctor's departure, she threw his pills out of the window, and putting on pattens, took her cane and went away through the slush to see Margaret. On the way many things passed through her mind, but most of all she remembered the spiritual struggles of her own young days, when she, too, had broken with Friends.

And now when she met Margaret in the hall, it was not the girl who wept most. Miss Gainor, looking up, saw Schmidt, and cried to him to go and not mock at two women in tears no man could understand.

"Ah," cried Schmidt, obediently disappearing, "he who shall explicate the tears of women shall be crowned by the seraphs." Thus he saw Gainor in her tender mood, such as made her to be forgiven much else of men and of angels. comforted the girl, and over the sad story of the stays and garters she laughed-not then, but on her homeward way in very luxury of unfettered mirth.

She

He who got the largest satisfaction out of poor Margaret's troubles was Josiah Langstroth, as he reflected how for the first time in his life he had made Mary Swanwick angry, had stirred up Friends, and at last had left the Presbyterian ministers, the trustees of Princeton College, in a hopeless quandary. If the owner of

the prize in their lottery would not take it, to whom did it belong? And so at last it was left in Miss Swanwick's name in the new bank Hamilton had founded, to await a use of which as yet no man dreamed.

XI

WHEN De Courval lost sight of the red city, and while the unusual warmth of the winter weather was favoring their escape from the ice adrift on the bay, the young man reflected that above all things it was wise to be on good terms with his captain.

Accordingly, he said: "It is fit, sir, that you should advise me as to Mr. Wynne's instructions. Have the kindness to read them. I have not done so."

Much gratified, the captain took the paper. "Hum!" he exclaimed, "to reach Port au Prince in time to prevent unloading of the George Washington. To get her out and send her home with her cargo." He paused. He paused. "We may be in time to overhaul and stop her; but if she has arrived, to carry her out from under the guns of the fort is quite another matter. To avoid the British cruisers.' Well, yes, we are only in ballast,"

he looked up with pride at the raking masts and well-trimmed sails,-"the ship does not float can catch the Marie. 'Free to do as seems best if we are stopped by privateers.' Ah, he knows well enough what I should do."

"He seems to have provided for that," said De Courval, glancing at the carronades and the long Tom astern such as many a peaceful ship prudently carried.

The captain grinned. "That is like Hugh Wynne. But these island fools rely on us for diet. They will be starving, and if the George Washington reach the island before we do, they will lose no time, and, I guess, pay in worthless bills on France, or not at all. However, we shall see." This ended the conversation.

They had the usual varied luck of the sea; but the master carried sail, to the alarm of his mates, and seeing none of the dreaded cruisers, overtook a French merchant ship and learned with certainty of the outbreak of war between France and Great Britain, a fresh embarrassment, as they well knew.

At sundown on February the 15th, the lookout on the crosstrees saw the moun