“I know you would like our flag to be out as soon as the rest, grandmother, and the Yates’ flag was flying, and the Vanderlyns’, and I had hard work to get ours flying before the Moores’ and the Rivingtons’. I thought the whole city had gone mad, and I sent Mink and Bass to find the reason out. They stopped so long! and when they came back, they said it was because we are going to fight England again. How men do love to fight, grandmother!” “When for their liberty and their homes men fight they do well, do they not?” “If you had heard Peter Smith talking to a little crowd at our very gate, you would think men found the reason for their existence in a gun or a sword. He said we should whip England in about six weeks, and----” “That is enough, Annette. The sort of rubbish that Peter talks and simpletons believe I know. We shall win our fight, no doubt of that; but in six weeks! No, it may as likely be six years.” “Grandmother! Six years! And will there be no balls, and suppers, and no lovers for six years? Of course, all the young men who are to be noticed will prefer fighting to anything else; and what shall I do for a lover, grandmother?” “There is always Jose Westervelt.” “He will not do at all. He is too troublesome. He thinks I ought not to dance with any one but him; actually he objects to my speaking to some people, or even looking at them. It is too uncomfortable. I do not like tyranny--no American girl does.” “So you rebelled. But then, do you expect to catch fish without wetting yourself?” “It has been done.” She was putting on her grandmother’s feet the cloth slippers she usually wore in the house, and as she rose she perceived with a smile the delicious odour of the roasted pigeons which a negro slave was just bringing to the table. “I told Commenia to roast them, grandmother. I knew you would want something nice when you got back.” “Before the fire did she roast them?” “Yes--on skewers, and basted them with fresh butter. I found enough peas on the vines, and I pulled and shelled them myself, for it was next to impossible to keep the blacks off the streets.” “Thank you, dear one.” “I have had such a happy year, grandmother, and now, I suppose, all our gaieties will be ended.” “Come, come, there will be more gaieties than ever. I am sure that the Battery will be put in fighting trim; then the Bowling Green, with soldiers, will be alive. What will follow? Drills and parades, and what not; and in all the houses round about the Green the women will make idols of the men in uniform. And to be sure they will show their adoration by meat offerings and drink offerings; ceremonies, Annette, which generally end in dancing and love-making.” “You notice everything, grandmother.” “I have been young and now I am old; but love never gets a day older. What love was in the beginning, he is now, and ever shall be. These pigeons are very good. You said you had some at the Radcliffes’ yesterday--what kind of a dinner did they give?”