ach other on our new sister's beauty. What
lovely eyes!--Oh yes! What a sweet little dimple on her chin!--Ah oui!
What wonderful little feet!--Perfectly Chinese! where should we in
London get slippers small enough for her? And, these compliments
exhausted, we knew that we did not like Fanny the value of one
penny-piece; we knew that we disliked her; we knew that we ha... Well,
what hypocrites women are! We heard from many quarters how eagerly my
brother had taken up the new anti-English opinion, and what a champion
he was of so-called American rights and freedom. "It is her doing, my
dear," says I to my wife. "If I had said so much, I am sure you
would have scolded me," says my Lady Warrington, laughing: and I did
straightway begin to scold her, and say it was most cruel of her to
suspect our new sister; and what earthly right had we to do so? But
I say again, I know Madam Theo so well, that when once she has got a
prejudice against a person in her little head, not all the king's horses
nor all the king's men will get it out again. I vow nothing would induce
her to believe that Harry was not henpecked--nothing.

Well, we went to Castlewood together without the women, and stayed at
the dreary, dear old place, where we had been so happy, and I, at least,
so gloomy. It was winter, and duck-time, and Harry went away to the
river, and shot dozens and scores and bushels of canvasbacks, whilst I
remained in my grandfather's library amongst the old mouldering books
which I loved in my childhood--which I see in a dim vision still resting
on a little boy's lap, as he sits by an old white-headed gentleman's
knee. I read my books; I slept in my own bed and room--religiously kept,
as my mother told me, and left as on the day when I went to Europe.
Hal's cheery voice would wake me, as of old. Like all men who love to
go a-field, he was an early riser: he would come and wake me, and sit
on the foot of the bed and perfume the air with his morning pipe, as
the house negroes laid great logs on the fire. It was a happy time! Old
Nathan had told me of cunning crypts where ancestral rum and claret
were deposited. We had had cares, struggles, battles, bitter griefs, and
disappointments; we were boys again as we sat there together. I am a boy
now even as I think of the time.

That unlucky tea-tax, which alone of the taxes lately imposed upon the
colonies, the home Government was determined to retain, was met with
defiance throughout America.