Part 16 (1/2)

”I have been tricked,” said Margaret, ”and--and I will never forgive them--never.”

”But come down to dinner, my dear. You will have your revenge when the men see you. There, the Governor dislikes to wait. He has sent up to say dinner is ready.”

”I want my gown,” said the Pearl, ”and I will not go down.” Only anger kept her from tears.

”But the Governor must see you. Come, no one will know, and, bless me!

but you are a beauty!”

”Isn't she?” they cried in chorus. A glance at the mirror and a triumphant sense of victorious capacities to charm swept over the hesitating girl. Life of late had been as gray as her garb.

”Come, dear. You really must. You are making too much, quite too much, of a bit of innocent fun. If you wait to dress, I shall have to explain it all, and the Governor will say you lack courage; and must I say I left you in tears? And the mutton, my dear child--think of the mutton!”

”I am not in tears, and I hate you all, every one of you; but I will go.”

Her head was up, as fan in hand she went down in front of the cousins, now mildly penitent, Mrs. Penn at her side. ”Did they think to show off an awkward Quaker cousin, these thoughtless kittens? Give them a lesson, my dear.”

”I mean to,” said Margaret, her eyes flas.h.i.+ng.

The men were about the fire in the great drawing-room, one little girl just slipping out, the future wife of Henry Baring. The party was large--young Mr. Rawle and General Wayne and the Peters from Belmont near by.

The men turned to bow as Mrs. Penn stepped aside, and left to view a startling vision of innocence and youth and loveliness. The girl swept a curtsey, the practice when dreams of the world were teasing her had not been in vain. Then she rose and moved into the room. For a moment there was silence. Except Schmidt, no one knew her. The Governor, bowing, cried, ”By George! Margaret, you beat them all! What fairies have metamorphosed you?”

”We, we,” cried the chorus. The men paid her compliments after the downright fas.h.i.+on of their set. She was gay, quick to reply, amazingly at ease. Schmidt watched her, comprehending as no one else did the sudden revelation to the young woman of the power and charm of her beauty and the primal joy of unused weapons. To the younger men she was a little reserved and quiet, to the elder men all grace and sweetness, to the trickster cousins, disconcertingly cool.

”Where on earth did she learn it all?” said Mrs. Byrd, as she went out to dinner with Mr. Penn.

”Heaven knows. But it was a saucy trick and she will pay for it, I fear, at home.”

”Will she tell?” said Morris, the master of the rolls, as he followed behind them with Mrs. Wayne.

”Yes,” said Mrs. Byrd, ”she will tell; but whether or not, the town will ring with it, in a day or two. A pity, too, for the child is brought up in the straightest way of Friends. None of Madame Logan's fine gowns and half-way naughtiness for her.”

At dinner Margaret quietly amused Mr. Morris with Schmidt's terror of June, the cat, and with Mr. Jefferson's bout with Hamilton, and the tale of the sad lapse of De Forest, which greatly pleased General Wayne, her right-hand neighbor. When they left the men to their Madeira, she insisted on changing her dress. A not duly penitent bevy of maids a.s.sisted, and by and by it was a demure Quaker moth who replaced the gay b.u.t.terfly and in the drawing-room helped Madame Penn to make tea. They paid her fair compliments, and she smiled, saying: ”I, dear Mrs.

Penn--was I here? Thou must be mistaken. That was Grandmama Plumstead thou didst have here. Oh, a hundred years ago.”

”Ask her to come again,” said Mrs. Penn.

”And to stay,” said Mrs. Wayne; ”a charming creature.”

”The maid is clever,” said Mrs. Masters.

Meanwhile the wine went round on the coasters over the mahogany table in the dining-room, and men talked of France, and grew hot with wine and more politics than pleased their host, who had no definite opinions, or, if any, a sincere doubt as to the quality of a too aged Madeira.

He gave a toast: ”The ladies and our Quaker Venus.” They drank it standing.

”This wine needs fining,” said his reverence, the rector of Christ Church. They discussed it seriously.

Mr. Rawle cried, ”A toast: George Was.h.i.+ngton and the Federal party.”