For a long moment now, the girls stared at the dark river. Kitty was the first to take her eyes away. She did not refer to the old, sad loss, of which she knew they were both thinking. “Your father wrote that he was sending you to stay with us for a while,” she said quietly, “to get you away from that British officer you’ve been stealing out with. He said this--this enemy--puts on a homespun shirt and leather breeches, pretends to be one of our lads, and goes wherever he likes, on all the roads round Boston.” Sally Rose gave a soft little laugh. “Yes,” she said, “Gerry does that sometimes. But I like him better when he wears his scarlet coat and his sword. He’s sure handsome enough to make any girl forget about Johnny Pettengall.” There was a prideful note in Sally Rose’s voice as she shook back her yellow hair. “But he’s British, Sally Rose! He’s one of the King’s men who’ve captured Boston, and closed the port, and made so much trouble for the people who live there. Dick says they’ll march out and start shooting at us any day now. You’d be better off with a New England lad--even that logger.” Sally Rose sighed. “I know,” she said. “Wars are hard on a girl, Kit. I know I’m supposed to hate the British, but how can I, when they are so handsome--when they have such gallant manners! I’ll bet wars don’t mean a thing to those cupids round the mirror. Love doesn’t know Whig from Tory. But why does he have to be--” Three sharp taps sounded on the other side of the bedroom wall. “Granny’s cane!” cried Kit softly, lowering her voice to a whisper. “That means we’re keeping her awake. But there’s so much I want to hear. How you met this Gerry, and--” “Hush!” breathed Sally Rose, remembering Granny’s outbursts of short-lived peppery wrath. “I’ll tell you tomorrow.” They slipped into bed and lay quiet, side by side, arms relaxed on the counterpane, watching the moonlight along the wall. First Kitty turned over and sighed. A few minutes later Sally Rose did the same. Finally Kitty sat up and punched her pillow. “I can’t sleep,” she said. “Neither can I,” said Sally Rose. “I feel as if something were going to happen.” Below them in the town the church bells began to ring. They rang and rang, and kept on ringing. Kitty could see them in her mind, tossing wildly in their belfry, high over Market Square. She sat up higher in bed. Sally Rose sat up, too, and reached out for her cousin’s hand. “It must be a house afire,” said Kitty. “Can’t be a ship in trouble. The wind isn’t that strong.” She jumped out of bed and ran to the window, but no hot glare lit the sky, only the cold pale light of the April moon. Now a noise of shouting broke out in Fish Street, growing louder every minute. Lights flickered behind the windowpanes of the small wooden houses all about, and went on burning, steady and strong. Shadows moved across them. People were getting up.