While he was still little more than a boy he became the most honoured member of the Hopewell community; long before his hair was grey he began to be spoken of as one of the great men of the Colony. What Master Simon had been to his own little town, Stephen was beginning to be to all New England. Governors and King’s officers sought his advice, merchants and ship-masters and labouring men of every kind and degree laid their perplexities before him. That he was esteemed the wisest man in all Massachusetts was denied by no one save Stephen himself. With honest sincerity he laughed at all allusions to his greatness and thought of himself only as a humble man of law. “If I have had good fortune,” he used to say, “it is because of the shoemaker’s luck-penny. If people come to me it is only because they know that I am a hampered fellow and cannot well go to them. It is kindness of heart and that alone that brings a portion of the great world past my doors.” It was a strange and motley procession that went in and out of the great house, for half of his guests were dressed in frieze and homespun, while the other half came clad in satins and velvets and gold-laced scarlet coats. Gone now were the old times of rigid economy and stern simplicity among the Puritans. Men wore bright-coloured uniforms, lace ruffles and great powdered wigs, while the women, with their jewels, their patches, their high, red heels and long brocaded trains, were as gorgeously arrayed as the ladies of the English court. There used to be noble gatherings in Stephen’s big dining-room, when the greatest men in the land sat about his board and the tall wax tapers shone upon the officers’ red coats and jewelled orders, upon the ladies’ powdered hair and diamonds and upon the more soberly rich garb of the wealthy Massachusetts citizens. A throng of black-faced servants, themselves decked out in livery and powdered wigs, would wait upon the company and later conduct them into the long white-panelled drawing-room whose open windows looked out across the garden to the sea. Or, if it were winter, the guests would gather about the fireplace which, although much of the house was new, was the same rough stone one built by Master Simon’s hands. Amid this gay crowd of friends moved Stephen, quiet-mannered and simply clad, the only ornament upon his dark coat a diamond star given him by the King of France.