“My thanks to ye, Lady Washington,” said the squire, once the introduction was made, “but I have broken fast already, and have merely come to intercede with his Excellency on a sad matter.” In the fewest possible words he explained Philemon’s situation. “The lad assures me that he came but to serve me, and with never a thought of spying,” he ended. “I trust therefore that ye’ll not hold him as one, however suspiciously it may appear.”
“The matter shall have careful consideration at my hands, Mr. Meredith,” replied Washington.
“All the more, I trust, that ye are good enough to take an interest in my Jan, who is his promised bride.”
Both Washington and his wife turned to the girl, and the former said,—
“What, Miss Janice, is this the way thou hast kept thy promise to me to save thy smiles and blushes for some good Whig?”
“Janice Meredith! you are the most ungrateful creature that ever I knew!” asserted Mrs. Washington, crossly.
The girl only looked down into her lap, without an attempt at reply, but her father took up the cudgels.
“Nay!” he denied, “many a favor we owe to Mr. Hennion, and now he has topped them all by signing deeds within the hour that gives to the girl both Greenwood and Boxely.”
Janice looked up at her father. “’T is like him,” she said, chokingly. “Oh, General Washington, will you not be merciful to him?”
“What is done must depend wholly on General Brereton's report, Miss Janice,” answered Washington, gravely.