Page:Mistress Madcap Surrenders (1926).pdf/41

 riding on dispatch business, for I lost the road more than once. As for lights along this lane, Hitty—mayhap a hundred years or more will find some, as the lamps are hung on every seventh house i' New York Town to light the streets there. Yet—that would mean houses built as closely together, side by side, row after row, ye mind, as New York hath, and 'twill be more than one hundred years before this Orange meadowland and swampland and the Mountain be populated as thickly as a' that. More like three hundred years. Therefore I fear, Hitty"—he peered at her gravely through the shadows while Charity's tinkling laugh rang out—"I greatly fear ye will not live to see lights along the First Road, here!"

Mehitable tossed her head. "I'll warrant ye there will be stranger sights around here than lights along this lane, John, before another century," she retorted. "Besides, I be old enough to wait until I get home to read the missive, I should hope!" A moment later, however, her tone changed to one of beseeching childishness. "Oh, John!" she cried inconsistently. "There be Samuel Munn's tavern, with a lanthorn swinging in front o' the door! Do let me stop beneath its light and read my note!"

"But ye said ye hoped ye were old enough to wait, Hitty!" teased her brother.

He might as well have spoken to the wind. Me-