"Oh, you midget, are you up here at midnight?" she cried. "Have we done Cary ample honor on his arrival at man's estate?"
"You were all so beautiful!" said Doris breathlessly. "And the dancing and the music: It was splendid!"
Helen kissed her good-night with girlish effusion. Some of the other ladies spoke to her, and Mrs. Winslow said: "No doubt you will have a party in this old house. But you will have a girl's advantage. You need not wait until you are twenty-one."
When the last good-nights were said, and the lights put out, Cary Adams wondered whether he would have the determination to avow his plans.
CHAPTER XIX
THE HIGH RESOLVE OF YOUTH
War was declared. The President, James Madison, proclaimed it June 18, 1812. Hostilities opened promptly. True, England's navy was largely engaged with France in the tremendous effort to keep Napoleon confined within the boundaries that he had at one time assented to by treaty, but at that period she had over a thousand vessels afloat, while America had only seventeen warships in her navy to brave them.
There was a call for men and money. The Indian troubles had been fomented largely by England. There had been fighting on the borders, but the battle of Tippecanoe had broken the power of Tecumseh—for the time, at least. But now the hopes of the Indian chieftain revived, and the country was beset by both land and naval warfare.
The town had been all along opposed to war. It had been said of Boston a few years before that she was like Tyre of old, and that her ships whitened every sea. Still, now that the fiat had gone forth, the latent enthusiasm came to the surface, and men were eager to enlist. A company had been studying naval tactics at Charlestown, and most of them offered their services, filled with the enthusiasm of youth and brimming with indignation at the treatment our sailors were continually receiving.