er Cousin Andrew again at
dinner. Madam Wetherill had quite settled the question. She was going
out to her own country estate, and Primrose would have a change of air
and much more liberty, and under the circumstances it was altogether
better that she should not go to her uncle's, and Madam Wetherill
considered the matter as settled, though she promised to come out the
next day.

The dream of William Penn had been a fair, roomy city, with houses set
in gardens of greenery. There were to be straight, long streets reaching
out to the suburbs and the one to front the river was to have a great
public thoroughfare along the bank. Red pines grew abundantly, and many
another noble tree was left standing wherever it could be allowed, and
new ones planted. Broad Street cut the city in two from north to south,
High Street divided it in the opposite direction.

But even now "The greene country towne" was showing changes. To be sure
the house in Letitia Court was still standing and the slate-roof house
into which Mr. Penn moved later on. But market houses came in High
Street, the green river banks were needed for commerce, and little
hamlets were growing up on the outskirts. There were neighborly rows of
houses that had wide porches where the heads of families received their
neighbors, the men discussing the state of the country or their own
business, the women comparing household perplexities, complaining of
servants, who, when too refractory, were sent to the jail to be whipped,
and the complaints or the praises of apprentices who boarded in their
master's houses, or rather, were given their board and a moderate yearly
stipend to purchase clothes, where they were not made at home. Young
people strolled up and down under the great trees of elm and sycamore,
or lingered under the drooping willows where sharp eyes could not follow
them so closely, and many a demure maiden tried her hand on her father's
favorite apprentice, meaning to aim higher later on unless he had some
unusual success.

Up to this time there had been a reign of quiet prosperity. The old
Swedes had brought in their own faith; the church, so small at first as
to be almost unnoticed, was winning its way. And though Whitfield had
preached the terrors of the law, religious life was more tolerant.
Natural aspects were more conciliatory. The Friends were peace-loving
and not easily roused from placid methods of money-getting. There was
nothing of the Puritan environm