Page:Mistress Madcap Surrenders (1926).pdf/45

 "It be so delightful living i' this year 1779!" exclaimed Mehitable blithely, following the others in through the Condit gate. "I would not live in any other time an I could! Think o' the past—a hundred years ago, wi' the people coming down to New Jersey in boats from Branford village in Connecticut—don't laugh, John, I ha' it all from Grannie Pierson, who hath heard her own mother tell about it. How desolate this mountain must have been then—no plantations here, no lanes, nothing but wilderness and forest and Indians! And think o' a hundred years hence, e'en wi' the lights in the lanes." She glanced saucily at her brother as she pulled up her horse and watched him dismount. "Mayhap they will not have war and any such exciting adventures as are apt to befall one now!"

"How do ye know!" jeered her brother, lifting Charity down from her pillion and approaching Mehitable's horse to lead him, with old Dulcie, to the barn. "Don't stand there shivering, Cherry—run right into the house!" he added over his shoulder. "And come, Hitty, jump down! All this beatitude," he chuckled, "because o' a most dreadful war! Fie, my foolish sister, think o' the ragged soldiers at Morris Town!"

"Oh, I do!" answered Mehitable reproachfully. "I knit ever so many socks for them, John—ye can't think! Besides," her bright face fell, "may-