l, who married Esther Quincy, of the many small gifts
and subtle devices used by other would-be suitors as bribes either to
enlist the child's sympathies in gaining their end, or as a reward for
her absence at some interesting and sentimental crisis.

Mrs. Quincy, who before her marriage was Elizabeth Wendall, of New
York, was in full sympathy with her light-hearted, lively family of
boys and girls. Although the household had for its deeper inspiration
those Christian principles which were the governing factors in family
life of the colonists, and prayers were offered morning and night by
the assembled family, while the Sabbath was kept strictly as a day for
church-going and quiet reflection, yet the atmosphere of the home was
one of hospitable welcome. This made it a popular gathering-place not
only for the young people of the neighborhood, but also for more than
one youth who came from the town of Boston, ten miles away, attracted
by the bevy of girls in the old mansion.

Judge Quincy was not only a devout Christian and a respected member of
the community, he was also a fine linguist. He was so well informed on
many subjects that, while he was by birth and tradition a
Conservative, giving absolute loyalty to the mother country, and
desirous of obeying her slightest dictate, yet he was so much more
broad-minded than many of his party that he welcomed in his home even
those admirers of his daughters who were determined to resist what
they termed the unjust commands of the English Government. Among these
patriots-to-be who came often to the Quincy home was John Adams, in
later days the second President of the United States, and who was a
boy of old Braintree and a comrade of John Hancock, whose future
history was to be closely linked with the new and independent America.
Hancock was, at the time of his first visit to the old Quincy mansion,
a brilliant young man, drawn to the Judge's home by an overwhelming
desire to see more of pretty Dorothy, whose slippered foot stepping
from the old meeting-house had roused his interest. Up to the time
when he began to come to the house, little Dorothy was still
considered a child by her brothers and sisters, her aims and ambitions
were laughed at, if she voiced them, and she was treated as the family
pet and plaything rather than a girl rapidly blossoming into very
beautiful womanhood.

As she saw one after another of her sisters become engaged to the man
of her choice, watched t