At the opening of hostilities between the two countries, she was wooed by two suitors, young Stone, the eldest of the sons of that family, and Abram Cutler, who was two or three years his senior. Both had recently returned home, after a protracted absence of several years, beyond the mountains, whither they had been sent by their ambitious parents, "to attend college and see the world." Stone was a quiet, modest, unassuming young man, rather handsome, but too pale and thin to be decidedly so. Having made the most of his opportunities at "William and Mary," he had come home well-educated (for that day and country) and polished by intercourse with good society. His cousin, Abram Cutler, was his opposite in almost everything. He had been wild, reckless, and violent, at college, almost entirely giving up his studies, after the first term, and always found in evil company. His manners were as much vitiated as his morals, for he was exceedingly rough, boisterous, and unpolished: so much so, indeed, as to approach that limit beyond which wealth will not make society tolerant. But his freedom of manner bore, to most observers, the appearance of generous heartiness, and he soon gained the good will of the neighborhood by the careless prodigality of his life. He was tall, elegantly formed, and quite well-looking; and though he is said to have borne, a few years later, a sinister and dishonest look, it is probable that most of this was attributable to the preconceived notions of those who thus judged him. Both these young men were, as we have said, suitors for the hand of Margaret Roberts, and it is possible that the vain satisfaction of having at her feet the two most attractive young men in the country, led her to coquet with them both, but decidedly to prefer neither. It is almost certain, that at the period indicated, she was sufficiently well-pleased with either to have become his wife, had the other been away. If she _loved_ either, however, it was Stone, for she was a little timid, and Cutler sometimes frightened her with his violence: but the preference, if it existed at all, was not sufficiently strong to induce a choice. About this time, the elder Cutler died, and it became necessary for Abram, as executor of a large estate, to cross the mountains into the Old Dominion, and arrange its complicated affairs. It was not without misgiving that he went away, but his duties were imperative, and his necessities, produced by his spendthrift habits, were pressing. He trusted to a more than usually favorable interview with Margaret, and full of sanguine hopes, departed on his journey.