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 Cousin Eliza, for she gave it me to deliver to ye at my first opportunity."

"From Cousin Eliza!" interrupted Charity in surprise. "But she lives in Trenton and John comes from Morris Town! He but now told me so!"

"Cousin Eliza lives in Trenton, 'tis true," admitted Mehitable, before her brother could speak. "It seems, however—an ye give a chance, Cherry, I will explain!—it seems she hath been visiting her old friend, Mistress Lindsley, on the Whippanong Road out o' Morris Town, and while there—indeed, almost upon her arrival, she fell and broke her ankle. 'Tis a most painful and tedious injury, she says, and the ladies o' the household being very busy, she is left much o' the time alone, for her French maid, Felice, fell sick just before she started and so had to be left at home. Now, forsooth, she wants you and me, Cherry, to come and stay awhile, wi' Mistress Lindsley's permission, to act as her nurses and companions. She says John hath promised to implore our mother to allow us to go. She says also"—Mehitable looked obliquely at her brother and laughed—"that though the menfolk o' the Lindsley family be gone much o' the time, there is to be a gay winter in the village, from all reports, wi' the nice young officers quartered there, American and French! Indeed, she