"Indeed I shall," was the emphatic reply, "and of the tea as well. I have a notion she got it all from Robert Jameson. You know what they tell of him; and he and Aunt Penine seem to have a deal to say to one another these days. She has sent Pashar to him with notes ever so many times, as I know; and Pashar seems to have more silver nowadays than father gives him, for he has, more than once, brought 'Bitha sweets from the store." Mary nodded significantly at the mention of Robert Jameson's name. He was the nearest neighbor of Joseph Devereux, and had come to be regarded with distrust--enmity, indeed--by most of his former associates. He was a widower of some wealth, and had no family; and Aunt Penine had long been suspected of cherishing a desire to entrap him into a second matrimony. A few months before, an exceedingly complimentary, almost fulsome, address to Hutchinson, the recent Governor, had appeared in the columns of a newspaper known as the "Essex Gazette," to which were attached the names of some residents of the town, Jameson's amongst them. It endorsed all that had been said in praise of his administration, and of his aiming only at the public good; and it asserted that such was the opinion of all thinking and dispassionate citizens. This manifest untruth had raised a storm of indignation. A town meeting was held, and a committee appointed, with instructions to inform the signers of this false and malicious statement that they would be exonerated only by making a public retraction of all sentiments contained therein; and that upon refusing to do this, they would be denounced as enemies of the province, desiring to insult both branches of the legislature, and to affront the town. Jameson had been one of the few who refused to comply with the committee's demand; and he had since been shunned as an enemy to the cause, and looked upon with suspicion and distrust. CHAPTER IX The household was astir early the next morning to set the travellers on their road with a warm meal and a parting word; and despite the absence of Aunt Penine, all the domestic machinery moved as smoothly as usual. There could still be seen a few stars, not yet blotted out by the pearly haze, shot with palest blue, that the dawn was putting in front of them. Over the sea hung a curtain-like gathering of fog, and the air was heavy with the odors from the wood and fern, brought forth by the damp. Nicholson Broughton, having borrowed a saddle from his host, had decided to pursue the remainder of his journey on horseback; and he, with his two younger companions, was now about to set forth. Mary stood near her father's horse, while he gave her some parting words of encouragement.