ly, "I thought at first that Burgundy
smacked somewhat of Boston tea."

"The Burgundy's sound enough," said Colonel John Butler, grimly.

"So is the toast," bawled Sir Lupus. "It's a pacific toast, a soothing
sentiment, neither one thing not t'other. Dammy, it's a toast no Quaker
need refuse."

"Sir Lupus, your permission!" broke out Captain Campbell. "Gentlemen, it
is strange that not one of his Majesty's officers has proposed the
King!" He looked straight at me and said, without turning his head: "All
loyal at this table will fill. Ladies, gentlemen, I give you his Majesty
the King!"

The toast was finished amid cheers. I drained my glass and turned it
down with a bow to Captain Campbell, who bowed to me as though
greatly relieved.

The fiddles, bassoons, and guitars were playing and the slaves singing
when the noise of the cheering died away; and I heard Dorothy beside me
humming the air and tapping the floor with her silken shoe, while she
moistened macaroons in a glass of Madeira and nibbled them with serene
satisfaction.

"You appear to be happy," I whispered.

"Perfectly. I adore sweets. Will you try a dish of cinnamon cake? Sop it
in Burgundy; they harmonize to a most heavenly taste.... Look at
Magdalen Brant, is she not sweet? Her cousin is Molly Brant, old Sir
William's sweetheart, fled to Canada.... She follows this week with
Betty Austin, that black-eyed little mischief-maker on Sir John's right,
who owes her diamonds to Guy Johnson. La! What a gossip I grow! But
it's county talk, and all know it, and nobody cares save the Albany
blue-noses and the Van Cortlandts, who fall backward with standing too
straight--"

"Dorothy," I said, sharply, "a blunted innocence is better than none,
but it's a pity you know so much!"

"How can I help it?" she asked, calmly, dipping another macaroon into
her glass.

"It's a pity, all the same," I said.

"Dew on a duck's back, my friend," she observed, serenely. "Cousin, if I
were fashioned for evil I had been tainted long since."

She sat up straight and swept the table with a heavy-lidded, insolent
glance, eyebrows raised. The cold purity of her profile, the undimmed
innocence, the childish beauty of the curved cheek, touched me to the
quick. Ah! the white flower to nourish here amid unconcealed corruption,
with petals stainless, with bloom undimmed, with all its exquisite
fragrance still fresh and wholesome in an air heavy with wine and the
odor of dying rose