"Never mind my hands; soap and water will cleanse them. Clarissa wants a 'real English Christmas,' she said, and poor dear! she shall have it. It does my heart good to see her brighten and glow like her old pretty self."
"You can thank Captain Yorke for putting the 'real English Christmas' into her head; there's a fine Tory for you, Betty. Sometimes I forget he's one of our foes—he's almost nice enough to be a patriot."
"He thinks he is one, Peter; he owes his loyalty to his king, and were less than a man not to give his services where ordered."
"Ha, ha!" quoth Peter teasingly; "you'll be as bad as Kitty presently."
"How so?" returned Betty, biting her lip as she turned her face away from Peter's roguish eyes.
"Why, Kitty had a walk-over course with the scarlet coats until you came, and Captain Yorke was one of her gallants. But now I find him at your elbow whenever you give him half a chance. But I've seen you snub him well, too; you girls are such changeable creatures. I'd not have a scarlet coat dancing around after me if I were you, Betty;" and Peter endeavored to look sage and wise as he cocked his head on one side like a conceited sparrow. What reply Betty might have made to his pertness was uncertain, but at that moment both doors of the room opened and Clarissa entered by one as Kitty flew in the other.
"How industrious you are," cried Kitty, as she bade them all good-day; "the rooms will be a bower of green, such as Captain Yorke tells about. I came, Clarissa, to beg a note of invitation for Peggy Van Dam. She has but just returned from Albany, and will be mightily pleased to be bidden to your card-party."
"I wondered if she would be in time," said Clarissa, seating herself at her claw-legged, brass-mounted writing-table. "Has she changed much, Kitty—not that I mean"—and Clarissa's sentence ended in a laugh.
"There was room for it," finished Kitty. "No, she is just the same: aping youth, with the desire to conceal age."
"Oh, Kitty, that's the severest speech I ever knew you guilty of!"