"And so our gray moth has become a butterfly. I think Mother Eve would not have abided long without a milliner. I should like to have been of the party up-stairs."
"You would have been much enlightened," said Miss Wynne on the stair. "I shall send for the boxes, Mary." And with this she went away with Margaret, as the doctor had declared was still needful.
"Why are you smiling, Aunt?" said Margaret.
"Oh, nothing." Then to herself she said: "I think that if René de Courval had heard her talk to Arthur Howell, he would have been greatly enlightened. Her mother must have understood; or else she is more of a fool than I take her to be."
"And thou wilt not tell me?" asked the Pearl.
"Never," said Gainor, laughing—"never."
Meanwhile there was trouble in the western counties of Pennsylvania over the excise tax on whisky, and more work than French translations for an able and interested young clerk, whom his mother spoke of as a secretary to the minister.
"It is the first strain upon the new Constitution," said Schmidt; "but there is a man with bones to his back, this President." And by November the militia had put down the riots, and the first grave trial of the central government was well over; so that the President was free at last to turn to the question of the treaty with England, already signed in London.
Then once more the clamor of party strife broke out. Had not Jay kissed the hand of the queen? "He had prostrated at the feet of royalty the sovereignty of the people."