"I came for a month," answered Dolly; "I was ill of spring fever, and since then my mother thinks this mountain air benefits me. But you go back to your duties at Yale College, though it's early yet for them."
"My students and I have spent our vacation handling cartridges," said Josiah grimly, for he was a tutor at Yale, and had done yeoman service in the defense of New Haven. "'Tis a sorry sight to see our beautiful city now laid waste; but that our faith is strong in the Continental Congress and General Washington, I know not how heart could bear it."
"Who speaks of faith?" said Pamela's gentle voice, as she slipped into a chair on Dolly's right. "I think hope is ever a better watchword."
"Aye," murmured Huntington, as Dolly summoned courage to cross the room, "it is one I will carry ever with me, Pamela, if you bid me do so."
"I did not mean," faltered Pamela, casting down her dove-like eyes, but not so quickly that she did not see the ardent glance of her lover, "I—that is—oh yes, Aunt Euphemia," with sudden change of tone, "it is growing somewhat dark, and we had better leave the moulds to harden. Shall I tell Miss Bidwell that you are ready for supper?"
To which Miss Euphemia returned an affirmative, and the whole party trooped back to the dining-room, Pamela leading the way, and Huntington following her with a half-mischievous smile curving his usually grave mouth.
CHAPTER III
OLIVER'S PRISONER
"I don't care anything about it," said Miss Moppet with decision. "It's a nasty, horrid letter, and I've made it over and over, and it will not get one bit plainer. Count one, two, jump one; then two stitches plain; it's no use at all, Miss Bidwell, I cannot make it any better." And with a deep sigh Miss Moppet surveyed her sampler, where she had for six weeks been laboriously trying to inscribe "Faith Wolcott, her sampler, aged nine," with little success and much loss of temper.
"W is a hard letter," said Miss Bidwell, laying down one of the perpetual stockings with which she seemed always supplied for mending purposes; "you will have to rip this out again; the first stroke is too near the letter before it;" and she handed the unhappy sampler back to the child.