“N’importe, mon fils. I did want the mandarin. He nodded this way--this way. He wagged his head as a dog wags his tail, like Thomas Scattergood in the Meeting. Comme ca.” She became that man in a moment, turning up the edge of her silk shawl, and nodding solemnly. I screamed with laughter. Ever since I was a child, despite my father’s dislikes, she had taught me French, and when alone with me liked me to chatter in her mother language. In fact, I learned it well. On the occasion of which I began just now to speak, my Aunt Gainor entered, with a graver face than common, and I rising to leave her with my father, she put her whip across my breast as I turned, and said, “No; I want you to hear what I have to say.” “What is it, Gainor?” “This business of the ship ‘Gaspee’ the Rhode Island men burned is making trouble in the East. The chief justice of Rhode Island, Hopkins, has refused to honour the order to arrest these Rhode-Islanders.” “Pirates!” said my father. “Pirates, if you like. We shall all be pirates before long.” “Well, Gainor, is that all? It does not concern me.” “No; I have letters from London which inform me that the Lord North is but a puppet, and as the king pulls the wires he will dance to whatever tune the king likes. He was a nice, amiable young fellow when I stayed at his father’s, my Lord Guilford’s, and not without learning and judgment. But for the Exchequer--a queer choice, I must say.” “It is to be presumed that the king knows how to choose his ministers. Thou knowest what I think, Gainor. We have but to obey those whom the Lord has set over us. We are told to render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and to go our ways in peace.” “The question is, What are Caesar’s?” said my aunt. “Shall Caesar judge always? I came to tell you that it is understood in London, although not public, that it is meant to tax our tea. Now we do not buy; we smuggle it from Holland; but if the India Company should get a drawback on tea, we shall be forced to take it for its cheapness, even with the duty on it of threepence a pound.” “It were but a silly scheme, Gainor. I cannot credit it.” “Who could, John? and yet it is to be tried, and all for a matter of a few hundred pounds a year. It will be tried not now or soon, but next fall when the tea-ships come from China.” “And if it is to be as thou art informed, what of it?” “A storm--a tempest in a teapot,” said she. My father stood still, deep in thought. He had a profound respect for the commercial sagacity of this clear-headed woman. Moreover, he was sure, as usual, to be asked to act in Philadelphia as a consignee of the India Company. She seemed to see through her brother, as one sees through glass. “You got into trouble when the stamps came.” “What has that got to do with this?” “And again when you would not sign the Non-importation Agreement in ‘68.” “Well?” “They will ask you to receive the tea.”