For the rest, he wore a green-and-gold uniform of very elegant cut--green being the garb of his regiment, the Royal Greens, as I learned afterwards--and his buff-topped boots and his metals were brilliant and plainly new.
When the patroon named me to him he turned his lack-lustre eyes on me and offered me a large, damp hand.
In turn I was made acquainted with the several officers in his suite--Colonel John Butler, father of Captain Walter Butler, broad and squat, a withered prophecy of what the son might one day be; Colonel Daniel Claus, a rather merry and battered Indian fighter; Colonel Guy Johnson, of Guy Park, dark and taciturn; a Captain Campbell, and a Captain McDonald of Perth.
All wore the green uniform save the Butlers; all greeted me with particular civility and conducted like the respectable company they appeared to be, politely engaging me in pleasant conversation, desiring news from Florida, or complimenting me upon my courtesy, which, they vowed, had alone induced me to travel a thousand miles for the sake of permitting my kinsmen the pleasure of welcoming me.
One by one the gentlemen retired to exchange their spurred top-boots for white silk stockings and silken pumps, and to arrange their hair or stick a patch here and there, and rinse their hands in rose-water to cleanse them of the bridle's odor.
They were still thronging the gun-room, and I stood alone in the drawing-room with Sir George Covert, when a lady entered and courtesied low as we bowed together.
And truly she was a beauty, with her skin of rose-ivory, her powdered hair a-gleam with brilliants, her eyes of purest violet, a friendly smile hovering on her fresh, scarlet mouth.
"Well, sir," she said, "do you not know me?" And to Sir George: "I vow, he takes me for a guest in my own house!"
And then I knew my cousin Dorothy Varick.