While Lord William Daw, with the morbid and sensitive egotism of a lover, inquired of himself: Does she intend that remark for me? Does she look upon me only in the light of a lovesick boy? Do I only disgust her, then? Thus tormenting himself until their party had entered the carriage, and driven back once more to Colonel Compton’s hospitable mansion, and where his host, inwardly laughing, pressed him to come in and take a bed and breakfast.
But the youth, doubtful of the colonel’s seriousness, piqued at his inamorata’s scornfulness, and ashamed of his own devotedness, declined the invitation, bowed his adieus, and was about to retire, when Colonel Compton placed his carriage and servants at Lord William’s disposal, and besought him to permit them to set him down at his own hotel, a service that the young gentleman, with some hesitation, accepted.
In a few days from this, General Washington left Philadelphia for Mount Vernon. And Colonel Compton, who went out of office with his chief, broke up his establishment in Philadelphia, and, with his family, set out for his home in Virginia.
CHAPTER II.
“THE LOVE CHASE.”
“——When shines the sun aslant,
The sun may shine and we be cold;
Oh, listen, loving hearts and bold,
Unto my wild romaunt,
Margaret, Margaret!”
—E. B. Browning.