which was true, and more. He would deride Patty for sewing and baking,
vowing that they had servants enough now to do the work twice over. She
bore with him with a patience to be marvelled at; and I could never get
it through my head why Mr. Swain indulged him, though he was the elder,
and his mother's favourite. Tom began to dress early. His open
admiration was Dr. Courtenay, his confessed hope to wear five-pound
ruffles and gold sword knots. He clung to Will Fotheringay with a
tenacity that became proverbial among us boys, and his boasts at King
William's School were his father's growing wealth and intimacy with the
great men of the province.

As I grew older, I took the cue of political knowledge, as I have said,
from Mr. Swain rather than Captain Daniel, who would tell me nothing. I
fell into the habit of taking supper in Gloucester Street. The meal was
early there. And when the dishes were cleared away, and the barrister's
pipe lit, and Patty and her mother had got their sewing, he would talk by
the hour on the legality of our resistance to the King, and discuss the
march of affairs in England and the other colonies. He found me a ready
listener, and took pains to teach me clearly the right and wrong of the
situation. 'Twas his religion, even as loyalty to the King was my
grandfather's, and he did not think it wrong to spread it. He likewise
instilled into me in that way more of history than Mr. Allen had ever
taught me, using it to throw light upon this point or that. But I never
knew his true power and eloquence until I followed him to the Stadt
House.

Patty was grown a girl of fifteen then, glowing with health, and had
ample good looks of her own. 'Tis odd enough that I did not fall in
love with her when Dolly began to use me so outrageously. But a lad of
eighteen is scarce a rational creature. I went and sat before my oracle