first, long ago, their wine made me stupid, and they found rare sport in
baiting me; but now they tumble, one by one, ere the wine's fire touches
my face, and father swears there is no man in County Tryon can keep our
company o' nights and show a steady pair of legs like mine to bear him
bedwards."

After a moment's silence I said: "Are these your Northern customs?"

"They are ours--and the others of our kind. I hear the plain folk of the
country speak ill of us for the free life we lead at home--I mean the
Palatines and the canting Dutch, not our tenants, though what even they
may think of the manor house and of us I can only suspect, for they are
all rebels at heart, Sir John says, and wear blue noses at the first run
o' king's cider."

She gave a reckless laugh and crossed her knees, looking at me under
half-veiled lids, smooth and pure as a child's.

"Food for the devil, they dub us in the Palatine church," she added,
yawning, till I could see all her small, white teeth set in rose.

A nice nest of kinsmen had I uncovered in this hard, gray Northern
forest! The Lord knows, we of the South do little penance for the
pleasures a free life brings us under the Southern stars, yet such
license as this is not to our taste, and I think a man a fool to teach
his children to review with hardened eyes home scenes suited to
a tavern.

Yet I was a guest, having accepted shelter and eaten salt; and I might
not say my mind, even claiming kinsman's privilege to rebuke what seemed