ia
shawl it had taken seven years to make, and the Persian silk gown that
had been bought of some great chief or Mogul--grandmother wasn't quite
sure, but she thought they had a king or emperor in those countries. She
had a little piece of the silk that she showed Hanny, and a waist ribbon
that came from Paris, "For you see," said she, "we were so angry with
England that we wouldn't buy anything of her if we could help it. And
the French people came over and helped us."

"What did they fight about, grandmother?"

"Oh, child, a great many things. You can't understand them all now, but
you'll learn about them presently. The people who came here and settled
the country wanted the right to govern themselves. They thought a king,
thousands of miles away, couldn't know what was best for them. And
England sent over things and we had to pay for them whether we wanted
them or not. And it was a long struggle, but we won, and the British had
to go back to their own country. Why, if we hadn't fought, we wouldn't
have had any country," and grandmother's old face flushed.

The little girl thinks it would be dreadful not to have a country, but
her mind is quite chaotic on the subject. She is glad, however, to have
been on the winning side.

Nearly every day Uncle David took her out driving. They saw the old
house on the hill in a half-hidden, woody section where the family had
to live until the new house was built. They went round the battlefield,
but sixty years of peace had made great changes, and the next fifty
years was to see a beautiful town and many-storied palaces all about.
She dipped into the history of New Amsterdam again and began to
understand it better, though she did mistrust that Mr. Dederich
Knickerbocker now and then "made fun," not unlike her father.

The visit came to an end quite too soon, grandmother thought, and she
was very sorry to part with the little girl. She thought she would try
and come down when the fall work was done, and she gave Hanny only four
blocks of patchwork, for if she went to school there wouldn't be much
time to sew.

They stopped at Yonkers two days and picked up the boys, who were brown
and rosy. Aunt Crete was much better and did not have to go about with
her face tied up. She said there was no place like Yonkers, after all.
Retty seemed happy and jolly, but there was a new girl in the kitchen,
for Aunt Mary had gone to live with her children. George said he should
come down a whil