Within the house the girls were hastily donning their finery, shaking out their skirts, and making ready to flutter down to the foot of the stairway where their escorts awaited them, while such of the men as had ridden made use of the time to unloop the tails of their coats, prudently fastened back for their ride over forest trails.
"Girls, have any of you seen this Maryland maid who is staying with Mistress Huntoon?" asked Mistress Nancy Lynch, as they came down the stair, buttoning their gloves.
"Why," answered Polly Claiborne, "once I caught a glimpse of her standing on the terrace with Romney. I thought no great things of her. She was too brown, and but for a pretty trick of the eyes she had no claims."
"Yet they say at the chapel of ease the parson can scarce go on with the service for gazing on her, and when in the litany he comes to 'Have mercy upon us' he looks straight at her in the Huntoon pew."
"Well, there is one lucky thing, all the men are dead set against Maryland now. I dare say the poor thing will have scarce a partner at the ball."
"You would not care to dance with a girl from Maryland, would you, Captain Snow?" said Mistress Polly, leaning over the railing to where the young officer stood smoothing back his cuffs.
"Not while Virginia holds her own as she does to-night. You have promised me the first reel, remember. Faith! 'tis as fine a hall as ever I saw for dancing."
"Ay, that it is!" echoed Nancy Lynch, and straightway the whole bevy of girls and men fell to echoing the praises of the house, and voting it the finest in the province, next to the Governor's.
On the outside Romney was but a settler's house, noteworthy only in size and fine proportion; within, it was an English mansion, for all the furnishings of Romney Hall in Devonshire had been brought over and placed as nearly as possible in their relative position in the new house.