"There! Does it look like Old Boston?"
They were winding around Copp's Hill. Warren had been given part of a day off, and the use of the chaise and Jack, to show the little cousin something of Boston before they went to Uncle Winthrop's to tea.
Doris had her new coat, which was a sort of fawn color, and the close Puritan cap to keep her neck and ears warm. For earache was quite a common complaint among children, and people were careful through the long cold winter. A strip of beaver fur edged the front, and went around the little cape at the back. Its soft grayish-brown framed in her fair face like a picture, and her eyes were almost the tint of the deep, unclouded blue sky.
They had a fine view of Old Boston, but they could hardly dream of the Boston that was to be. There were still the three elevations of Beacon Hill, lowered somewhat, to be sure, but not taken away entirely. And there was Fort Hill in the distance.
"Why, it looks like a chain of islands, and instead of a great sea the water runs round and round. At home the Witham comes down to the winding cove called The Wash. Boston is sort of set between two rivers, but it is fast of the mainland, and doesn't look so much like floating off. You can go over to the Norfolk shore, and you look out on the great North Sea. But it isn't as big as the Atlantic Ocean."
"Well, I should say not!" with disdain. "Why, you can look over to Holland!"
"You can't see Holland, but it's there, and Denmark."
"And we shall have to be something like the Dutch, if ever we mean to have a grand city. We shall have to dike and fill in and bridge. I have a great regard for those sturdy old Dutchmen and the way they fought the Spanish as well as the sea."
Doris didn't know much about Holland, even if she could make pillow lace and read French verses with a charming accent.
"That's the Mill Pond. And all that is the back part of the bay. And over there a grand battle was fought—but you were not born before the Revolutionary War."