he is a royalist and was never
happy with John Stevens; it is better that she wed him."

Robert Stevens was twelve or fourteen, when his mother, laying aside her
widow's weeds, became young again. Robert remembered his father and
their days of privation, and he did not forget that all they had, they
owed to that father. He witnessed his mother's smiles and blushes with
some anxiety. One day, as he was going an errand to Neck of Land, he was
accosted by a meddlesome fellow named William Stump, with:

"Master Robert, do you know you are soon to have a father-in-law?"
(Stepfather was in those days known as father-in-law.)

"No!" cried the boy, indignantly.

"By the mass! you are. Don't you observe how Hugh Price is continually
with your mother?"

Robert's eyes filled with tears, and he cried:

"I will kill him!"

William Stump, laughing at the misery he had occasioned, answered:

"Marry! lad, you can do naught. Better win the favor of Hugh, for he can
be a cruel master."

Robert went on his errand, hating both Hugh Price and William Stump, and
he determined to appeal to his mother to have no more to do with
Hugh Price.

Robert had been sent on the errand by the mother, that he might be away
when Hugh Price came. She had an intuition, as women sometimes do, that
the supreme moment had arrived in which Hugh would "speak his mind." The
widow looked very pretty in her lace and silk and frilled cap, from
which the raven tresses peeped. She had also managed to dispose of
little Rebecca, so the coast was clear when Mr. Price, on his gayly
caparisoned steed, arrived. To one not acquainted with the state of Hugh
Price's mind, his appearance and behavior on the occasion of his ride
from Greensprings to Jamestown would have been mysterious and
unaccountable.

Dismounting at the stiles he gave the rein to a gayly dressed negro, who
led the animal into the barn while the negro girl showed him to the
parlor, which was furnished gorgeously. The harp which the widow played
was in the corner with her Spanish guitar. The room was unoccupied when
Hugh entered. He paced to and fro with nervous tread, popped his head
out of the window at intervals of three or four minutes and glanced at
the hourglass on the mantel, manifesting an impatience unusual in him.

It was quite evident that some subject of great importance occupied his
mind. At last Mrs. Stevens entered, quite flustered, almost out of
breath and her cheeks crimson with