"Hush!" said Elizabeth, interrupting her with the quick impulsive tears starting to her eyes. "Little Peggy, it has been the one drop of sadness in our cup that we have had no daughter. Now we happen to have taken a fancy to you, though you do snarl flax. Nay, never blush and look at Romney; it is a daughter we want, though she be not our son's wife. We love you for yourself, and we love Christopher for himself. So speak no word further of parting, but rather play the daughter of the house and help me in planning the dance." "Oh, may I really? Do you think I ought?" "I do indeed think you both may and ought. It is more than any one woman can undertake alone. I must go into the house at once to begin." "And I will follow as soon as this is unsnarled," said Peggy. "And I will wait to practise kneeling to the Queen's taste," said Romney, with a look which brought a surge of red to Peggy's cheek. "Heigh-ho!" sighed his mother as she walked toward the house, "it is one thing to sigh for the moon; another to get it." CHAPTER XX A BIRTHNIGHT BALL It was the evening of Romney's dance. Lights blazed from every window of the Huntoon mansion, and outside the moon hung her yellow lantern in honor of the merry-making. Already the guests were gathering. At the wharf lay a flock of white-sailed boats, billing together like a covey of friendly swans. Around the door huddled a motley group of men and boys, holding the bridle of horse and donkey, and in the midst, the centre of observation, stood the lumbering yellow coach with a crest on the panel of its door, the state carriage of the Governor of the province and used only on occasions of ceremony. On the shore, in front of the house, a great bonfire flamed up, a beacon that could be seen far out on the river. Above the fire stretched two parallel bars supported on forked stakes. On one of the bars hung a huge moose figuring in place of the ox that would have adorned a barbecue in England. On the other bar hung a string of wild birds, duck, heron, and bittern, alternating with raccoon, squirrel, and possum. On the ground around the fire sat a throng of Indians and negroes interspersed with white servants, eagerly watching the game hissing on the spit. In the centre, Philpotts crouched, resting on his heels and holding out his hands to the cheerful blaze. "I tell you, Cupid," he said, turning to a negro seated beside him, "this is a sight for sore eyes, yet would I give more than all, if one I wot of could get the good of it with the rest of us." Cupid answered by raising his eyebrows in question and jerking his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of a lighted window against which Neville's figure was outlined.