spoken so familiarly of him, yet she
had not suspected. How blind she had been!

There was young Mrs. Beekman, thirty or so, already getting stout, and
with the fifth Beekman boy that she would gladly have changed for a
girl; Mrs. Bond, the next sister, with a boy and a girl; Aunt Gitty
Beekman, some Vandewater cousins, and some Gessler cousins from Nyack.

They had rush-bottomed and splint chairs, several rockers, some rustic
benches, and two or three tables standing about, with work-baskets and
piles of sewing and knitting, for people had not outgrown industry in
those days, and still taught their children the verses about the busy
bee.

Dolly put Margaret in a rocker, untied her bonnet, and took off her soft
white mull scarf--long shawls they were called, and the elder ladies
wore them of black silk and handsome black lace. They were held up on
the arms and sometimes tied carelessly, and the richer you were, the
more handsomely you trimmed them at the ends. Then for cooler weather
there were Paisley and India long shawls.

Hanny kept close to her sister and leaned against her knee. She felt
strange and timid with the eyes of so many grown people upon her. But
they all took up their work and talked, asking Margaret various
questions in sociable fashion.

There were three Beekman boys and one little Bond running about. The
girl was very shy and would sit on her mother's lap. The Beekmans were
fat and chubby, with their hair cut quite close, but not in the modern
extreme. They wore long trousers and roundabouts, and low shoes with
light gray stockings, though their Sunday best were white. We should say
now they looked very queer, and unmistakably Dutch. You sometimes see
this attire among the new immigrants. But there were no little
Fauntleroy boys at that period with their velvet jackets and
knickerbockers, flowing curls and collars.

The boys tried to inveigle Hanny among them. Pety offered her the small
wooden bench he was carrying round. Paulus asked her "to come and see
Molly who had great big horns and went this way," brandishing his head
so fiercely that the little girl shuddered and grasped Margaret's hand.

"Don't tease her, boys," entreated their mother. "She'll get acquainted
by and by. I suppose she isn't much used to children, being the
youngest?"

"No, ma'am," answered Margaret.

The boys scampered off. Annette knelt down on the short grass, and
presently won a smile from the little girl, who w