oh! Betty, do you know that Miranda has a new follower?
His name is Sambo, and he comes from Breucklen Heights; he has been
practicing a dance with her, and old Jan Steen, the Dutch fiddler, has
promised to come and play for them and their friends in the kitchen,
and for my part I think there will be more fun there than at Clarissa's
card-party--don't you? Wake up, Betty; I don't believe you've heard one
word I've been saying."

"Indeed I have," replied Betty, returning to her present surroundings
with a start. "A dance, Peter? Why, it seems to me the servants have
great liberty here."

"Don't you give yours a holiday up in New England? I thought you had
negro servants as well as we?"

"So we do; you know that Miranda is the daughter of our old cook, Chloe.
She came here with Clarissa when she was a bride; oh, we have a few
negro servants in dear New England, Peter, but not so many as here.
Gulian told me that there are some three thousand slaves owned in the
city and its environs. But our negroes go to church and pray; they do
not dance, and I know Chloe would be shocked with Miranda's flippant
ways. She was ever opposed to dancing."

"Don't be prim, Betty."

"I--prim?"--and Betty went off into a shout of girlish laughter, as she
flung a pine needle at Peter, who dodged it successfully; "that I live
to hear myself called what I have so often dubbed Pamela. Fie, Peter,
let Miranda dance if she will; I should love to see her. It would be far
more amusing than cards."

"Betty," said Peter, edging nearer her and lowering his voice to a
whisper, "I heard that the Sons of Liberty had another placard up near
the Vly Market last night, and that Sir Henry Clinton is in great wrath
because they are growing daring again. My! wouldn't I just like to see
one of them; but they say (so Pompey told me) that they are all around
us in different disguises. That's why they're so difficult to catch; it
would go hard with them if the Hessians lay hands on the author of the
placards."

"But they will not; I heard Gulian say only last night that the
cleverness with which the placards are prepared and placed was
wonderful. Who tells you these things, Peter? Do have a care, for we are
under Gulian's roof, and he would be very angry if he knew that your and
my sympathies are all on the side of the Whigs."

"Oh, I hear things," murmured Peter evasively. Then whispering in
Betty's ear, "Did you ever hear Kitty speak of Billy the fiddler?