"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 the palm with Dickinson's "Farmer's Letters" that had been so popular. Adams and James Allen, who disagreed with Paine, issued pamphlets, and many writers aired their opinions under various assumed names.