And now came Spring--the Spring of 1775. There had been, of course, for years past, and increasing daily in recent months, talk of the disagreement between the king and the colonies. I have purposely deferred mention of this subject, to the time when it was to fall upon us in its full force so that no one could ignore it or avoid action with regard to it. But I now reach the beginning of the drama which is the matter of this history, and to which all I have written is uneventful prologue. We young people of the Faringfield house (for I was still as much of that house as of my own) had concerned ourselves little with the news from London and Boston, of the concentration of British troops in the latter town in consequence of the increased disaffection upon the closing of its port. We heeded little the fact that the colonies meant to convene another general congress at Philadelphia, or that certain colonial assemblies had done thus and so, and certain local committees decided upon this or that. 'Twould all blow over, of course, as the Stamp Act trouble had done; the seditious class in Boston would soon be overawed, and the king would then concede, of his gracious will, what the malcontents had failed to obtain by their violent demands. Such a thing as actual rebellion, real war, was to us simply inconceivable. I believe now that Philip had earlier and deeper thoughts on the subject than I had: indeed events showed that he must have had: but he kept them to himself. And far other and lighter subjects occupied our minds as he and I started for a walk out the Bowery lane one balmy Sunday morning in April, the twenty-third day of the month. Mr. and Mrs. Faringfield, Fanny, and Tom, had gone to church. Philip and I boasted of too much philosophical reading to be churchgoers, and I had let my mother walk off to Trinity with a neighbour. As for Margaret, she stayed home because she was now her own mistress and had a novel to read, out of the last parcel received from London. We left her on the rear veranda, amidst the honeysuckle vines that climbed the trellis-work. "I've been counting the weeks," she said to Phil, as we were about to set forth. "Only seven more Sundays." And she stopped him to adjust the ribbon of his queue more to her taste. "Aren't you glad?" "Yes; and a thousand times so because it makes you happy, my dear," said he. She kissed him, and let him go. "Don't walk too far, dear!" she called after us. We looked back from the gateway, and saw that she had come to the end of the veranda to see us from the garden. We doffed our hats, and Phil threw her a kiss; which she returned, and then waved her hand after us, softly smiling. Philip lingered a moment, smiling back, to get this last view of her ere he closed the gate.