"Severe?" laughed Janice. "If dear dadda is really angry, I'll let tears come into my eyes, and then he'll say he's sorry he hurt my feelings, and kiss me; but if he's only doing it to please mommy, I'll let my eyes shine, and then he'll laugh and tell me to kiss him. Oh, Tibbie, what a nice time we could have if women were only as easy to manage as men!" With this parting regret, Miss Meredith sallied forth to receive the expected reproof. The lecture or kiss received,--and a sight of Miss Meredith would have led the casual observer to opine that the latter was the form of punishment adopted,--the two girls mounted into the big, lumbering coach along with their elders, and were jolted and shaken over the four miles of ill-made road that separated Greenwood, the "seat," as the "New York Gazette" termed it, of the Honourable Lambert Meredith, from the village of Brunswick, New Jersey. Either this shaking, or something else, put the two maidens in a mood quite unbefitting the day, for in the moment they tarried outside the church while the coach was being placed in the shed, Miss Drinker's face was frowning, and once again Miss Meredith's nails were dug deep into the little palms of her hands. "Yes," Janice whispered. "She put it in the fire. Dadda saw her." "And we'll never know if Amaryllis explained that she had ever loved him," groaned Tabitha. "If ever I get the chance!" remarked Janice, suggestively. "Oh, Jan!" cried Tabitha, ecstatically. "Would n't it be delightsome to be loved by a peasant, and to find he was a prince and that he had disguised himself to test thy love?" "'T would be better fun to know he was a prince and torture him by pretending you did n't care for him," replied Janice. "Men are so teasable." "There's Philemon Hennion doffing his hat to us, Jan." "The great big gawk!" exclaimed Janice. "Does he want another dish of tea?" A question which set both girls laughing. "Janice! Tabitha!" rebuked Mrs. Meredith. "Don't be flippant on the Sabbath." The two faces assumed demureness, and, filing into the Presbyterian meeting-house, their owners apparently gave strict heed to a sermon of the Rev. Alexander McClave, which was later issued from the press of Isaac Collins, at Burlington, under the title of:-- "The Doleful State of the Damned, Especially such as go to Hell from under the Gospel." II THE PRINCE FROM OVER THE SEAS