He told of their dams and lodges, their arts of safety, their home life. He added many startling facts believed a hundred years ago concerning the beaver, but discredited to-day. Malherb shook his head. "You are too eager to flaunt the superiority of even your brute beasts," he said. "You will praise the Red Indians next." "They have their virtues, sir. Perhaps the man of America has learned from them something of that passionate love of freedom that inspires him. At least Vermont's history is glorious in that respect. We played a notable part before an evasive and temporising Congress. We preserved our independence. We declined to sacrifice our rights, either to the intrigues of our neighbours, or the threats of our supreme tribunal. We challenged the impartial world in 1779, and refused once and for all to submit our sacred liberties to the arbitrament of man. Vermont existed independently of the thirteen United States, and was not accountable to them for the Creator's gift of freedom. We spent our best blood and treasure fighting for it. Were we to give up all at our neighbour's bidding? Were we to hold a great frontier for the States and be rewarded with slavery? We had rather have cast in our lot with Canada--we had even rather have made terms with England than bend under the yoke of New York." "A lifelong misfortune for you that you did not," answered the farmer. "No, no. The sequel justified all. To turn to England to settle the rights of man in the Colonies would have been an insane act in those days. Your Government was not then competent to approach such a question as the rights of man." "No politics, gentlemen," said Annabel; whereupon Cecil Stark begged for pardon, and with sufficient tact turned to matters of more personal interest. He told of sheep and the success attending their breeding in Vermont. "A wether of three years will weigh one hundred and twenty pounds with us, and yield you three or four pounds of wool," he said. Then he discussed flax--a crop at that time grown also upon Dartmoor--and he fascinated Grace with a description of the maple sugar manufacture, of the precious juice flowing from ancient trees, and of the gorgeous pageant of the maples when Autumn's breath touched their foliage and lighted their aboriginal forests with scarlet and purple and flaming gold.