"Lard, madam! such vermin are used to being stared at. In London, Newgate and Bridewell are theatres as well as the Cockpit or the King's House, and the world of mode flock to the one spectacle as often as to the other. But see! the sloop has passed the marsh and has a clean sweep of water between her and the wharf."
"Yes, she is coming fast now."
"What is coming?" asked a voice from the doorway.
"The Flying Patty, Aunt Lettice," the girl answered over her shoulder. "Get your hood and come with us to the wharf."
Mistress Lettice Verney emerged from the hall, two red spots burning in her withered cheeks, and her tall thin figure quivering with excitement.
"I am all ready, child," she quavered. "But, mark my words, Patricia, there will be something wrong with my paduasoy petticoat, or Charette will not have sent the proper tale of green stockings or Holland smocks. Did you not hear the screech owl last night?"
"No, Aunt Lettice."
"It remained beneath my window the entire night. I did not sleep a wink. And this morning Chloe upset the salt cellar, and the salt fell towards me." Mistress Lettice rolled her eyes heavenward and sighed lugubriously. Patricia laughed.
"I dreamed of flowers last night, Aunt Lettice; miles and miles of them, waxen and cold and sweet, like those they strew over the dead."
Mistress Lettice groaned. "'Tis a dreadful sign. Captain Norton's wife (she that was Polly Wilson) dreamed of flowers the night before the massacre of 'forty-four. The only thing the poor soul said when the war-whoop wakened them in the dead of the night and the door came crashing in, was, 'I told you so.' They were her last words. Then Martha Westall dreamed of flowers, and two days later her son James stepped on a stingray over at Dale's Gift. And I myself dreamed of roses the week before those horrid Roundhead commissioners with the rebel Claiborne at their head and a whole fleet at their back, compelled us to surrender to their odious Commonwealth."