Page:Mistress Madcap Surrenders (1926).pdf/46

 hap Mother will not let us go to visit Cousin Eliza at Morris Town, after all!"

But Mistress Condit, when the girls had burst in upon her, both talking excitedly at once, seemed as pleased as her daughters upon reading the note, although she sighed and said:

"Poor Eliza—for all her wealth, she seems e'er to ha' bad luck! I mind that dreadful Christmas at Trenton when she had to have all those Hessians quartered in her fine house."

There was a moment's silence as she read on. Then she exclaimed in dismay:

"Routs and assemblies! But, my dear little maids, what o' clothes! Ye ha' both outgrown the party gowns Cousin Eliza did give to ye that same Christmas I wot of! And ye cannot attend balls in homespun!" She looked from one disappointed face to another. "Never mind," she went on kindly, "Mother will find a way, somehow! Ah, my son, 'tis good to see you again!"

She turned with brightening eyes to greet her boy, and Charity watched in sympathetic silence the long embrace which spoke so eloquently of the long, hard months of separation. Mehitable, as soon as she had heard her brother outside the door, and knowing then that the matter of a visit to Morris Town would be dismissed from her mother's mind in welcoming the young soldier, had hastily filled a brass warming pan with coals from the fire