ice in her laughing eyes.

"Not I, indeed, you may be certain, but I will not be backward on her
return, I assure you."

"I have been," announced Madam Wetherill quietly. "I thought it but a
duty, having met Colonel Hancock and wishing to be presented to his
wife."

"Oh, tell us!" cried half a dozen voices. "What is she like--very grand?
For he is fine and commanding."

"We shall never finish our game with so much talk about everybody,"
declared one of the Tory ladies in vexation.

"She is not commanding." Madam Wetherill laid down her card as she
smiled, and trumped her adversary. "But she hath a certain dignity and
intelligence that makes up for inches, and a face that is winning and
expressive, with fine, dark eyes and fair skin showing just a natural
blossom on her cheek. And her manners are most agreeable. I am sorry we
could not have given her some sort of welcome. Well, moppet?" as
Primrose entered shyly with a written message to her great aunt, "make
your best courtesy, child, and tell the ladies how you liked Madam
Washington."

Primrose obeyed with a pretty flush on her cheek, and an irresistibly
shy manner.

"I liked her very much. And she said she once had a little girl of her
own, and then her eyes looked almost as if they had tears in them, they
were so soft and sweet. Her face was beautiful."

"Well, well, we all feel disposed to envy thee," said Sally. "Some of us
should have the courtesy to go to-morrow."

Mrs. Ferguson rapped on the table. "If no one means to pay attention to
the game we may as well give up and devote ourselves to laudation," she
said shortly.

Madam Wetherill looked at the note and said, "Yes," and Primrose,
courtesying, stole out softly. But afterwards the game was ended with a
good deal of curtness on Mrs. Ferguson's part, who had lost; for, while
people were strenuous enough on some points, no one disdained to play
for money.

The girls stopped for a cup of chocolate that Mistress Janice sent in,
and renewed the talk of their disappointment, bewailing the prospect of
a dull enough season.

But there were much excitement and high and bitter discussions to mark
the winter. The breach between the war party and the peace party of
Quakers widened greatly, and the outcome was the Free Quakers, or
Fighting Quakers, as they came to be called. The departure of the
British from Boston was hailed as a sign of hope. Thomas Paine's "Common
Sense" was widely read, and disputed t