Maryland -- History -- Fiction; United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Fiction
One fifteenth of June two children sat with bated breath in the pinnace,
--Dorothy Manners and myself. Mistress Dolly was then as mischievous a
little baggage as ever she proved afterwards. She was coming to pass a
week at the Hall, her parents, whose place was next to ours, having gone
to Philadelphia on a visit. We rounded Kent Island, which lay green and
beautiful in the flashing waters, and at length caught sight of the old
windmill, with its great arms majestically turning, and the cupola of
Carvel House shining white among the trees; and of the upper spars of the
shipping, with sails neatly furled, lying at the long wharves, where the
English wares Mr. Carvel had commanded for the return trips were
unloading. Scarce was the pinnace brought into the wind before I had
leaped ashore and greeted with a shout the Hall servants drawn up in a
line on the green, grinning a welcome. Dorothy and I scampered over the
grass and into the cool, wide house, resting awhile on the easy sloping
steps within, hand in hand. And then away for that grand tour of
inspection we had been so long planning together. How well I recall that
sunny afternoon, when the shadows of the great oaks were just beginning
to lengthen. Through the greenhouses we marched, monarchs of all we
surveyed, old Porphery, the gardener, presenting Mistress Dolly with a
crown of orange blossoms, for which she thanked him with a pretty
courtesy her governess had taught her. Were we not king and queen
returned to our summer palace? And Spot and Silver and Song and Knipe,
the wolf-hound, were our train, though not as decorous as rigid etiquette
demanded, since they were forever running after the butterflies. On we
went through the stiff, box-bordered walks of the garden, past the
weather-beaten sundial and the spinning-house and the smoke-house to the
stables. Here old Harvey, who had taught me to ride Captain Daniel's
pony, is equerry, and young Harvey our personal attendant; old Harvey
smiles as we go in and out of the stalls rubbing the noses of our trusted
friends, and gives a gruff but kindly warning as to Cassandra's heels.
He recalls my father at the same age.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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