what do you mean?"

"Nothing, child. There, let us return to the house, for it is growing
late."

Then, as they walked up the gentle slope to the cabin of the widow, the
maiden repeated to herself:

"But he does mean something!"

CHAPTER VIII.

MOVING ONWARD.

Laws formed to harmonize contrarious creeds,
And heal the wounds through which a nation bleeds;
Laws mild, impartial, tolerant and fixed,
A bond of union for a people mixed;
Such as good Calvert framed for Baltimore,
And Penn the Numa of th' Atlantic shore.

The Stevens family were so intimately related to their country, that the
history of one is the history of the other. Philip Stevens, or Estevan,
had located in the south and left behind a numerous progeny, while his
brother Mathew, who came over in the _Mayflower_, had left an equally
large family in New England. Their descendants began to push out into
the frontier colonies, those in the south going as far north as
Pennsylvania, and those in the east pushing out westward to New York and
New Jersey.

The family were lovers of freedom, and, wherever a struggle has been
made on American soil for liberty, one of these descendants of the youth
who landed on American soil with Columbus, in 1492, has been found.
They disliked Andros, and the members of this now extensive and widely
scattered family were in sackcloth and ashes, so to speak, when King
James, in 1688, gave Andros a vice-regal commission to rule New York and
all New England.

When the viceroy journeyed from Boston to New York City, early in August
the same year, George Stevens, a cousin of Charles, accompanied him, and
saw Andros received by Colonel Bayard's regiment of foot and horse, who
was entertained by the loyal aristocrat. In the midst of the rejoicings,
the news came that the queen, the second wife of James, had been blessed
with a son, who became heir to the throne. The event was celebrated the
same evening by bonfires in the streets and a feast at the city hall. At
the latter, Major Van Cortlandt became so hilarious, that he made a
burnt sacrifice to his loyalty of his hat and periwig, waving the
burning victims over the banquet table on the point of his straight
sword.

Princess Mary, the eldest daughter of King James, had married the Prince
of Orange, and this new birth in the royal family was a disappointment
to the Dutch inhabitants of New York, as well as the Protestant
republicans, who had