ncerity of his feelings.

"Miss Dorothy," said he, when he was calmer, "I give ye Richard for a
leal and a true heart. Few men are born with the gift of keeping the
affections warm despite absence, and years, and interest. But have no
fear of Richard Carvel."

Dorothy stood a little apart, watching us, her eyes that faraway blue of
the deepening skies at twilight.

"Indeed, I have no fear of him, captain," she said gently. Then, with a
quick movement, impulsive and womanly, she unpinned a little gold brooch
at her throat, and gave it to him, saying: "In token of my gratitude for
bringing him back to us."

John Paul raised it to his lips.

"I shall treasure it, Miss Manners, as a memento of the greatest joy of
my life. And that has been," gracefully taking her hand and mine, "the
bringing you two together again."

Dorothy grew scarlet as she curtseyed. As for me, I could speak never a
word. He stepped over the side to hand her into the wherry, and embraced
me once again. And as we rowed away he waved his hat in a last good-by
from the taffrail. Then the Betsy floated down the Thames.

CHAPTER XXXI. "UPSTAIRS INTO THE WORLD"

It will be difficult, my dears, without bulging this history out of all
proportion, to give you a just notion of the society into which I fell
after John Paul left London. It was, above all, a gaming society.
From that prying and all-powerful God of Chance none, great or small,
escaped. Guineas were staked and won upon frugal King George and his
beef and barley-water; Charles Fox and his debts; the intrigues of
Choiseul and the Du Barry and the sensational marriage of the Due
d'Orleans with Madame de Montesson (for your macaroni knew his Paris
as well as his London); Lord March and his opera singer; and even
the doings of Betty, the apple-woman of St. James's Street, and the
beautiful barmaid of Nando's in whom my Lord Thurlow was said to be
interested. All these, and much more not to be repeated, were duly set
down in the betting-books at White's and Brooks's.

Then the luxury of the life was something to startle a provincial, even
tho' he came, as did I, from one of the two most luxurious colonies
of the thirteen. Annapolis might be said to be London on a small
scale,--but on a very small scale. The historian of the future need look
no farther than our houses (if any remain), to be satisfied that we had
more than the necessities of existence. The Maryland aristocrat with his
town p