A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia Part 44

She meant it from her full heart, and the admiration shone in her eyes.

But she was thinking that Rachel would never marry a soldier.

"Nay, little one," smiling with manly tenderness. "I have no love for soldiering without a cause. When all is gained you will see even our great commander come back to private life. I think to-day he would rather be at Mount Vernon with his wife and the little Custis children than all the show and trappings of high military honors. And there should never be any love or l.u.s.t of conquest except for the larger liberty."

Madam Wetherill comforted him with great kindliness.

"I think thou wilt lose nothing in the end," she said gravely. For though she was somewhat set against cousins marrying, and Andrew seemed too grave a man for b.u.t.terfly Primrose, she remembered Bessy Wardour had been very happy.

Allin Wharton could walk out with a cane, and found his way often down to Arch Street. He was sitting there one morning, making Primrose sing no end of dainty songs for him, when a chaise drove up to the door.

"Now there is a caller and I will sing no more for you," she exclaimed with laughing grace. "Some day these things will be worn threadbare with words falling out and leaving holes."

"And you can sing la, la, as you do sometimes when you pretend to forget, and so patch it up."

"Then my voice will get hoa.r.s.e like a crow. Ah, someone asks for Miss Henry. How queer! I hardly know my own name."

She ran out heedlessly. Allin was no longer pale, and gaining flesh, but this man was ghostly, and for a moment she stared.

"Oh, Phil! Phil!" she cried, and went to his arms with a great throb of sisterly love.

"Oh, Primrose! Surely you have grown beautiful by the hour. And such a tall girl--why, a very woman!"

"But how have you come? We have been waiting and waiting for word. Oh, sit down, for you look as if you would faint."

He took the big splint armchair in the hall, and she stood by him caressing his hand, while tears glittered on her lashes.

"I reached the town yesterday. I had not the courage to come, and was very tired with my journey, so I went to Mrs. Grayson's, on Second Street. I knew her during Howe's winter; some of our officers were there."

"'Our.' Oh, Phil! now that all is over I want to hear you say 'my country.' For it is your birthplace. There must be no mine or thine."

"I am a poor wretch without a country, Primrose," he said falteringly.

"Nay, nay! You must have a share in your father's country. I shall not let you go back to England."

"I have thought the best place to go would be one's grave. Everything has failed. Friends are dead or strayed away. The cause is lost. For I know now no armies can make a stand against such men as these patriots.

And if I had never gone across the sea, I suppose I should be one of them. But it is ill coming in at the eleventh hour, when you have lost all and must beg charity."

"But we have abundant charity and love."

"You are on the winning side."

Her beautiful, tender eyes smiled on him, and the tremulous lips tried not to follow, but she was proud of it, her country's side.

"Oh, forgive me!" she cried in a burst of pity.

"Nay, Primrose, I am not so much of a coward but that I can stand being beaten and endure the stigma of a lost cause--an unjust cause, we shall have to admit sooner or later. But I seem to have been shilly-shallying, a sort of gold-lace soldier, and the only time I was ever roused--oh, Primrose! believe that I did not know who I should attack until it was too late."

"And, Phil, you will take it all back now. Come hither in the parlor.

There is one soldier who will shake hands heartily without malice, and my Cousin Andrew is often dropping in--_your_ cousin," in a sweet, unsteady voice, that was half a laugh and half a cry. "And we shall all be friends. Allin!"

He thought the name had never sounded so sweet and he would have gone up to the cannon's mouth if she had summoned him that way. She had caught it from Polly saying it so much.

But he hesitated a little, too. Besides the morning of the skirmish there had been the other encounter of hard words.

She took a hand of each and clasped them together, though she felt the resistance to the very finger ends. She smiled at one and at the other, and the sweetness of the rosy lips and dimpled chin was enough to conquer the most bitter enemies.

"Now you are to be friends, honest and true. This is what women will have to do: gather up the ends and tie them together, and make cunning chains that you cannot escape. Oh, there comes Madam Wetherill. See, dear aunt, I have reconciled Tory and Rebel!" and she laughed bewitchingly.

Allin said he must go, but he did wish Philemon Nevitt had not come quite so soon. How queer it was to meet thus, but then, could any man resist Primrose Henry?

Afterward they had a long talk. It seemed true now that Philemon Nevitt stood very much alone in the world, and certainly whatever dreams he had entertained of greatness were at an end. They had not been so very ambitious, to be sure, but he was young yet and could begin a new life.

But first of all he was to get sound and in good spirits, and Madam Wetherill quite insisted that he should spend the winter in Philadelphia and really study the country he knew so little about.

Dinner-time came, and she would have him stay. Every moment he thought Primrose more bewitching. For when one decided she was all froth and gayety, the serious side would come out and a tenderness that suggested her mother. It was not all frivolity, and he found she was wonderfully well-read for a girl of that day.

Philemon Nevitt was more than surprised when his cousin made his appearance. There was something in the hearty clasp and full, rich voice that went to his lonely heart. Once he recalled that he had met the quiet Quaker in his farm attire in this very house, and the bareness of his uncle's home, at his call, had rather displeased his fashionable and luxurious tastes.

They could not help thinking of the time when they had met in what might have been deadly affray if Providence had not overruled. And now Andrew Henry was many steps up the ladder of success; and he was down to the very bottom. He felt almost envious.

"But Andrew does not mean to be a soldier for life," Primrose declared afterward.

"What, not with this splendid prospect? And that martial air seems born with him. Why, it would be sinful to throw so much away when it is in his very grasp. I cannot believe it!"

"There is good Quaker blood in his veins as well," said Madam Wetherill with a smile. "And the fighting Quakers have been the n.o.blest of all soldiers because they went from the highest sense of patriotism, not for any glory. And you will find them going back to the peaceful walks of life with as much zest as ever."

"Yet you are not a Quaker, though you use so much of the speech. And I miss the pretty quaintness in Primrose. How dainty it was!"

Primrose ran away and in five minutes came back in a soft, gray silken gown, narrow and quite short in the skirt, a kerchief of sheer mull muslin crossed on her bosom, and all her hair gathered under a plain cap. Madam Wetherill was hardly through explaining that she had always been a Church of England woman, and one thing she had admired in Mr.

Penn more than all his other wisdom, was his insistence that everyone should be free to worship as he chose.

"Oh, Primrose!" he cried in delight. "What queer gift do you possess of metamorphosis? For one would declare you had never known aught outside of a gray gown. And each change brings out new loveliness. Madam Wetherill, how do you keep such a sprite in order?"

"She lets me do as I like, and I love to do as she likes," was the quick reply, as she laid her pretty hand on the elder woman's shoulder, and smiled into her eyes.

"She is a spoiled child," returned madam fondly. "But since I have spoiled her myself, I must e'en put up with it."

"But Mrs. Wharton spoils me too, and thinks the best of the house must be brought out for me. And even Aunt Lois has grown strangely indulgent."

"I believe I should soon get well in this atmosphere. And of course, Primrose," with a certain amused meaning, "you will never rest until I am of your way of thinking and have forsworn the king. Must I become a Quaker as well?"

"Nay, that is as thou pleasest," she said with a kind of gay sententiousness.

All of life was not quite over for him, Philemon Nevitt decided when he went back to Mrs. Grayson's house. It had been quite a famous house when the Declaration of Independence was pending, and held Washington, and Hanc.o.c.k, and many another rebel worthy. Then it had been a great place again in the Howe winter. Madam Wetherill had generously invited him to make her house his home, but he had a delicacy about such a step.

Early in December hostilities at the south ceased and the British evacuated Charleston. Preparations were made for a discussion of the preliminaries of peace. John Adams, John Jay, Benjamin Franklin, Jefferson, and Laurens were, after some discussion, named commissioners and empowered to act. General and Mrs. Washington came up to Philadelphia.

There was not a little wrangling in the old State House, for it was not possible that everyone should agree. And if the men bickered the women had arguments as well. Some were for having an American King and degrees of royalty that would keep out commoners, but these were mostly Tory women.