"Sleep is a good thing," sniffed Amanda Bryce. "Ay," retorted Mistress Strudwick, "when you are tucked in bed and the lights are out, it is; but not when you are standing up flat-footed with baking and brewing and weaving and such things to look after. Joscelyn's all right, Tory though she be. Look at her now, with all those red roses stuck around her belt; she's the finest sight on the street." "Fine enough to look at, I'm not gainsaying you; what I object to is hearing her when she talks about our war." "Well, Amanda, if our swords were all as sharp as her tongue can be, the war would soon be over." "You always were partial to the lass, Martha." "Ay, I often told Richard Clevering I'd be his rival were I a man, old or young; and truly I believe Joscelyn would look with more favour upon me of the two," laughed the corpulent dame, remembering the soft little touches with which the girl sometimes tidied up her gray hair and unruly neckerchief, and the caress upon her cheek that always closed the job. "I wonder you can take up so for her, Martha, when all your menfolk are in the Continental army, and she a rank Tory." "Oh, I can forgive a woman her politics, because, like a man's religion, it's apt to be picked up second-hand and liable to change at any time." "Don't you believe men have any true religion?" "Well, ye-e-s; if the rain comes in season, and the crops are good, and the cattle don't break into the corn, and their victuals are well cooked, they are apt to be middling religious." "Remember you have a husband of your own." "Yes, praise God, I have, and a good man he is, too; but when the dam in the levee breaks, or the cows get the hollow-horn, he's that rearing, tearing put out that he couldn't say offhand whether preordination or general salvation was the true doctrine; but the time never comes when he's too mad or too worried to know he's a Whig, every hair of him. That is what makes me say religion is a picked-up habit with men and politics is their nature. With a woman it's the other way; so I laugh at Joscelyn's politics, and kiss her bonny face and love her all the time." "That is more than I can do. If it were not for her mother, I should forbid my daughter to have aught to do with her," said Amanda Bryce, sniffily, as Joscelyn passed the gate with Betty Clevering and Janet Cameron, and called up a pleasant "good afternoon" to the elder women. "Well, your girl and not Joscelyn would be the loser thereby," retorted Martha Strudwick, regardless of the fact that she was in her own house; and there would doubtless have been sharp words had not Mistress Clevering interposed with some gentle remonstrance.