"I am all ready, child," she quavered. "But, mark my words, Patricia, there will be something wrong with my paduasoy petticoat, or Charette will not have sent the proper tale of green stockings or Holland smocks. Did you not hear the screech owl last night?" "No, Aunt Lettice." "It remained beneath my window the entire night. I did not sleep a wink. And this morning Chloe upset the salt cellar, and the salt fell towards me." Mistress Lettice rolled her eyes heavenward and sighed lugubriously. Patricia laughed. "I dreamed of flowers last night, Aunt Lettice; miles and miles of them, waxen and cold and sweet, like those they strew over the dead." Mistress Lettice groaned. "’T is a dreadful sign. Captain Norton’s wife (she that was Polly Wilson) dreamed of flowers the night before the massacre of ’forty-four. The only thing the poor soul said when the warwhoop wakened them in the dead of the night and the door came crashing in, was, ’I told you so.’ They were her last words. Then Martha Westall dreamed of flowers, and two days later her son James stepped on a stingray over at Dale’s Gift. And I myself dreamed of roses the week before those horrid Roundhead commissioners with the rebel Claiborne at their head and a whole fleet at their back, compelled us to surrender to their odious Commonwealth." "At least that evil is past," said the girl with a gay laugh. "And ill fortune will never come to me aboard the Flying Patty, so I shall go down to the wharf to see her in. Darkeih! my scarf!" A negress appeared in the doorway with a veil of tissue in her hand. Sir Charles took it from her and flung it over Patricia’s golden head, then offered his arm to Mistress Lettice. The wharf was but a stone’s throw from the wooden gates, and they were soon treading the long stretch of gray, weather-beaten boards. Others were before them, for the news that the sloop was coming in had drawn a small crowd to the wharf to welcome the master.