"A toast, my boy! a toast!" he called out, and under his breath he murmured, "Forget not that to-night you are host first and lover afterward."
Romney colored but took the goblet, raised it and said, bowing to all corners of the room,—
"To my guests, one and all!"
"I give you 'The Ladies of Virginia!'" called Colonel Payne.
"Here's to Maryland! Confusion to her men, but long life to her women!" It was Claiborne who spoke, and Captain Snow capped the toast by clinking his new ring against his goblet and crying, "I drink to Her!"
Peggy, seeing Romney's face darken again, took her courage in both hands and with it her goblet, which she lifted, saying in a soft voice which could yet be heard over all the room,—
"To Master and Mistress Huntoon, the kindest hostess and the noblest host, and—" here she stretched out her hand to Romney, "to the hero of the night, the best comrade in the world!"
A chorus of "Long life to them all!" greeted the toast, and the goblets clinked merrily; but to Romney it might have been water or wine or poison they were drinking, for all he knew or cared.
At last, when supper was ended Sir William Berkeley rose in his place, and with a solemnity quite different from his jovial manner of the evening hitherto he said, "One last toast, and we will, if you please, drink it standing. The King, God bless him!"