if the Lord couldn't have
made things straight in the beginning without his help. I dare say he
will find out what language they talked before the dispersion of Babel.
People are growing so wise nowadays, turning the Bible inside out!" and
she gave her characteristic sniff. "I'll have another cup of tea,
Elizabeth. Now that we're through with the war, and settled solid-like
with a President at the helm, we can look forward to something
permanent, and comfort ourselves that it was worth trying for. Still,
I've often thought of that awful waste of tea in Boston harbor. Seems as
though they might have done something else with it. Tea will keep a good
long while. And all that wretched stuff we used to drink and call it
Liberty tea!"

"I don't know as we regret many of the sacrifices, though it came harder
on the older people. We have a good deal to be proud of," said Mrs.
Leverett.

"And a grandfather who was at Bunker Hill," appended Betty.

Aunt Priscilla never quite knew where she belonged. She had come over
with the Puritans, at least her ancestors had, but then there had been a
title in the English branch; and though she scoffed a little, she had
great respect for royalty, and secretly regretted they had not called
the head of the government by a more dignified appellation than
President. Her mother had been a Church of England member, but rather
austere Mr. Adams believed that wives were to submit themselves to their
husbands in matters of belief as well as aught else. Then Priscilla
Adams, at the age of nineteen, had wedded the man of her father's
choice, Hatfield Perkins, who was a stanch upholder of the Puritan
faith. Priscilla would have enjoyed a little foolish love-making, and
she had a carnal hankering for fine gowns; and, oh, how she did long to
dance in her youth, when she was slim and light-footed!

In spite of all, she had been a true Puritan outwardly, and had a little
misgiving that the prayers of the Church were vain repetitions, the
organ wickedly frivolous, and the ringing of bells suggestive of popery.
There had been no children, and a bad fall had lamed her husband so that
volunteering for a soldier was out of the question, but he had assisted
with his means; and some twelve years before this left his widow in
comfortable circumstances for the times.

She kept to her plain dress, although it was rich; and her housemaid was
an elderly black woman who had been a slave in her childhood. She
devote