Set at ease as to their safety, the first concern of the women was a hastily improvised breakfast from the scantily supplied larder which Clowes’ servants had abandoned to them. In the kitchen, as well as all over the house, they found ample signs that pilferers had been at work, for every receptacle had been thrown open, drawers dragged out, and the floor littered with whatever the despoilers elected not to take. A month before Janice would probably have been moved to tears at the discovery that her “elegant and dashy robing,” as well as her Mischianza costume, had been stolen, but now she scarcely gave either of them a thought, so grateful was she merely to feel that they were safe from violence and insult.
In reinstating her own meagre possessions in their proper receptacles, which was the girls after-breakfast occupation, she came upon an unfinished silk purse, and this served to bring an end for a time to the restoration of order, while she sat upon the floor in a meditative attitude. Presently she laid it on the bureau with a little sigh and returned to her task. Once this was completed, she again took the purse, and seating herself, set about its completion.
Afraid to stir out of doors, and with little to occupy her. the next three days served to complete the trifle, elaborate and complicated as the pattern was. Meantime, a steady stream of Whigs flooded into the city, and from Captain McLane, who twice dropped in to make sure of their well-being, they learned that the Continental Congress was about to resume its sessions in the city. Ocular proof that the rulers of America were assembling was very quickly brought home to the two, for one morning Janice, answering a rap of the knocker, opened the door to the Honourable Joseph Bagby.
“Well, miss. I guess you ’re not sorry to see an old friend’s face, are you. now that the dandiprat redcoats you’ve been gallivanting with have shown that they prefer running away to fighting?” was his greeting, as he held out his hand.
Janice, divided in mind by the recollection of his treatment of them and by her fear of the future, extended her own and allowed it to be shaken, as the easiest means of escaping the still more difficult verbal response.
“Are n’t you going to ask me in?” inquired the caller, “for I’ve got something to say.”
“I did n’t know that you would want to,” faltered Janice, making entrance for him. “Mommy will be gla—will be in the parlour,” she said, leading the way to that room.
Without circumlocution, Bagby went at the object of his call the moment the equally embarrassing meeting with Mrs. Meredith was over.
“I came up to town,” he announced,” to ’tend Congress, of which I’m now a member;” and here the speaker paused as if to let the new dignity come home to his hearers. “Did n’t I tell you I was a rising man? But I had another object in view in being so prompt, and that was to have a talk with you to see if we can ’t arrange things. ’T is n’t given to every girl to marry a Congressman, eh, miss?”
“I—I—suppose not,” stammered Janice, frightened, yet with an intense desire to laugh.