“Aunt,” I said slyly, “what is this? Tories again?”
“Be quiet, child! You have pulled their teeth. You will see they are meek enough. The dog on top can always forgive, and I must have my cards. Behave yourself! How handsome you are! Here they come.” And now there was a cross-fire of welcomes and “We have missed you so much,” and “How well you look!” and fine sweep of curtseys, very pretty and refreshing to a war-worn veteran.
I bent to kiss Mrs. Shippen’s hand. Mrs. Ferguson tapped me on the arm with her fan, whispering I was grown past the kissing-age, at which I cried that would never be. I took Darthea’s little hand with a formal word or two, and, biding my time, sat down to talk with the two Margarets, whom folks called Peggy, although both were like stately lilies, and the pet name had no kind of fitness.
The ombre-tables were set out and ready, and it was all gay and merry, and as if there might never have been war, either civil or social. “It is all as meek as doves’ milk,” whispered Mistress Wynne over my shoulder. “Gossip and cards against the world for peacemakers, eh, Hugh?” Assuredly here was a beautiful truce, and all the world amiable.
The powdered heads wagged; brocade and silk rustled; the counters rattled. Fans huge as sails set little breezes going; there was wise neutrality of speech, King Ombre being on the throne and everybody happy.
Meanwhile I set my young women laughing with an account of how a Quaker looked in on them through the window at the redcoat ball, but of the incident in the garden I said nothing, nor was it known beyond those immediately concerned. The two Margarets were curious to hear what Mr. Washington looked like, and one miss would know if Mr. Arnold was a dark man, hearing with the delight of girls how his Excellency gave dinners in camp and sat on one side, with Mr. Hamilton or Mr. Tilghman, at the top, and for diet potatoes and salt herring, with beef when it was to be had, and neither plates nor spoons nor knives and forks for all, so that we had to borrow, and eat by turns.
Miss Morris, just come to town with good Whig opinions, was uneasy in this society, and said, “We shall have enough of everything when we catch Sir Henry Clinton.” In a minute there would have been more war had not my aunt risen, and the party turned to drink chocolate and eat cakes.
After a world of little gossip they settled their debts and went away, all but Mrs. Peniston and her niece, my aunt declaring that she wanted the elder lady’s advice about the proper mode to cool blackberry jam. For this sage purpose the shadow-like form of Darthea’s aunt in gray silk went out under cover of my aunt’s large figure, and Darthea and I were left alone.
How pretty she was in fair white muslin with long gloves, a red rosebud in each sleeve, and only a trace of powder on her hair, smiling, and above all women graceful! She had seemed older when we met in the Provostry, and now to-day was slim and girl-like. I do not know where she got that trick of change, for in after-days, when in the fuller bloom of middle age, she still had a way of looking at times a gay and heedless young woman. She had now so innocent an air of being merely a sweet child that a kind of wonder possessed me, and I could not but look at her with a gaze perhaps too fixed to be mannerly.
“Darthea,” I said, as we sat down, “I owe my life to you twice—twice.”