The party consisted of Mrs. Franklin, Edith, and Cynthia, with the addition at the last moment of Aunt Betsey. Each of the three Franklins felt a slight pang of disappointment when they heard that Miss Trinkett intended to join them; it would have been just a little nicer to go alone. But the old lady never suspected this, and she met them in Boston on the morning of the 1st of June, full of excitement and pleasure at the thought of seeing "the inner workings of this wonderful government of ours."
Hester's one thought was that she should soon see her brother again. During the last few weeks a letter had come from the head master at St. Asaph's, deeply regretting the unjust judgment that had been passed upon Neal in suspending him from school. It had since been proved that he was innocent, and the faculty would be only too glad to welcome him back. Mrs. Franklin felt that she could not do too much to atone to Neal for having suspected him, and she longed to tell him so.
"And if I once see him I can persuade him to come back. I know I can!" she said, joyfully, to Cynthia.
The visit was an unqualified success. The Franklin party did a vast amount of sight-seeing, Miss Trinkett being the most indefatigable of all. Indeed, Cynthia was the only one who was able physically to keep up with her energetic little grand-aunt, and even she was sometimes forced to plead fatigue.
Miss Betsey left nothing undone. She journeyed to the top of the Monument, she made a solemn pilgrimage to Alexandria. She was never too tired to go to the Capitol, and her little black-robed figure and large black bonnet soon became familiar objects in the visitors' gallery, while she listened carefully to all the speeches, thrilling or dull as they chanced to be. When the latter was the case, as frequently happened, Miss Trinkett waxed warm with indignation at the lack of attention paid to the prosy old member by his inconsiderate colleagues.
"Look!" she would whisper to Cynthia; "they are actually reading and writing and talking quite load to each other while that poor old gentleman is speaking; and some have gone out. How shocking!"
And she would lean forward again in an attitude of renewed attention, and listen to the reasons for or against some very unimportant project.
At Mount Vernon, Miss Trinkett's joy and patriotism knew no bounds. She bought little hatchets by the score, and herself drew up the bucket from the General's own well. She was even guilty of breaking off a twig in Mrs. Washington's garden, notwithstanding the signs which informed her that she was doing it under penalty of the law.
"I just couldn't help it," she said afterwards to her nieces, in apologetic tones. "To think of that labyrinth and that box-border being Martha Washington's own, and me with the same thing in my garden at home! It made me fairly thrill to think of Martha and me having the same tastes in common. I knew she'd have let me take it if she'd been here, for I always heard she was real kind-hearted, if she was dignified, so I just did it."
But the most exciting day of all was when they visited the Dead-letter Office. Miss Trinkett, interested as she had always been in the mail service, was much impressed. She sat upstairs for hours, and gazed over the railing at the rows of men who were opening and examining thousands of missent letters. She could only be torn away by the entreaties of Cynthia, who begged her to come see the collection of curiosities which had found their way to this vast receptacle.