"Oh, I'm so glad!" responded Priscilla. "I've been waiting to hear more about the Loyalists."
"You are an American?" questioned the girl. "Americans are not apt to care about Loyalists; they seem to think only about the Acadians; but my ancestors were all Loyalists, and if you will just come into the house my mother would love to talk to you."
So Priscilla followed her new acquaintance indoors. Outside, the house looked small, but within she found many rooms opening one into another, none of them very large, and all of them with low ceilings.
"My mother's great-grandfather built this house when he first came from New York. He was an officer in the Loyal American Regiment. There is his commission; we framed it to hang on the wall."
"By His Excellency Sir Henry Clinton, K. B., General and Commander-in-Chief of all His Majesty's Forces within the Colonies lying on the Atlantic Ocean, from Nova Scotia to West Florida inclusive, etc., etc., etc.
"By Virtue of the Power and Authority in Me vested, I DO hereby constitute and appoint You to be Captain of a Company in the Loyal American Regiment commanded by Colonel Beverly Robinson."
Priscilla read the whole commission in which the duties of the newly made captain were defined, to the very end where the signature of Sir Henry Clinton still stood out clearly.
While the new acquaintance went to call her mother, Priscilla looked around the pleasant sitting-room. There was a high, old-fashioned bookcase filled with books, many of them in dingy calf bindings. The young girl returned while she was looking at them, expressing her regret that her mother was not at home.
"My grandfather brought many of these books from New York," she said; "he was a nephew of the rector of Trinity Church, and was himself a graduate of King's College, New York."
"I don't see how they had the courage to give up everything and come down here so far away. Even if they did not like the new government, I should think they would rather have stayed where most of their friends and relatives were."