Page:Dorothy's spy; a story of the first "fovrth of Jvly" celebration, New York, 1776.djvu/41

30 "Indeed I do. The lace is torn from my petticoat front, and my gown is soiled."

"Some one stepped on the toe of my beautiful shoe, and scraped the gloss off," Dorothy added, as if believing that a list of her own mishaps would suffice to cheer the disconsolate Sarah. "My frontage is crushed, and I would have lost the steinkirk if I hadn't taken it off when we first arrived here."

While the children were comparing notes relative to the disarrangement of their costumes, and the ladies were dismally speculating as to what might be the result of trying to force a passage through the throng, Scip returned, breathless and heated.

"I done been everywhar, an' de Massa ain't dere. I 'spects he am so took up wid de fire dat he's jes' like a weasel in de stone wall. Carn't ole Scip do what you'se wants?"

"I am eager to get home; but don't dare to leave here without acquainting Master Dean of my purpose," the good woman replied in perplexity, and at that moment Mistress Lamb whispered in her ear:

"Surely it would be safe to send the children home with Scip. With them out of the way we shan't have so much to fret us, and can wait with some degree of patience, if it so be we must."

To the anxious woman this proposition seemed