There must have been in this troubled country many such sad scenes as I have tried to recall. Father and son were to part with hot words, brother to take sides against brother. My unpleasant half-hour was but prophetic of that which was to come in worse shape, and to last for years. My Aunt Gainor said, “Do not tell your mother,” and I assuredly did not. “He will tell her. He tells her everything, soon or late. I must see her at once. Your father is becoming, as the French say, impossible. The times, and these wrangling Friends, with their stupid testimonies, irritate him daily until he is like a great, strong bull, such as the Spaniards tease to madness with little darts and fireworks. You see, Hugh, events are prickly things. They play the deuce with obstinate people. Your father will be better away from home. He has never been in England, and he will see how many, like Mr. Pitt and Colonel Barre, are with us. As for myself, I have been a bit of a fool about you, and your father is more or less right. We must abjure sack and take physic.” “What?” said I. “To be plain, we must--that is, you must--play less and drink less, and in your father’s absence look sharply, with my help, to his business.” I was to need other doctors before I mended my ways. I said my aunt was right, and I made certain good resolutions, which were but short-lived and never reached adult maturity of usefulness. My aunt walked with me north between the warehouses, taverns, and ship-chandlers on the riverfront, and so across the bridge over Dock Creek, and up to Third street. She said I must not talk to her. She had thinking to do, and for this cause, I suppose, turning, took me down to Pine street. At St. Peter’s Church she stopped, and bade me wait without, adding, “If I take you in I shall hear of it; wait.” There was a midday service at this time, it being Lent. I waited idly, thinking of my father, and, as I before said, vexed and sorry and ashamed by turns. Often now I pause before I enter this sacred edifice, and think of that hour of tribulation. I could hear the fine, full voice of the Rev. Dr. Duche as he intoned the Litany. He lies now where I stood, and under the arms on his tomb is no record of the political foolishness and instability of a life otherwise free from blame. As I stood, Mrs. Ferguson came out, she who in days to come helped to get the unlucky parson into trouble. With her came my aunt. “I said a prayer for thee, Hugh,” she whispered. “No; no cards in Lent, my dear Bess. Fie! for shame! This way, Hugh;” and we went east, through Pine street, and so to the back of our garden, where we found a way in, and, walking under the peach-trees, came to where my mother sat beneath a plum-tree, shelling peas, her great Manx cat by her side.