“I should think she might well,” interrupted Miss Euphemia; “I will tell you, Pamela—­Betty, go upstairs and change your habit for a gown, and then come down to assist me.  We are about to mould the bullets.”

“Oh, Aunt Euphemia!” cried Betty, interrupting in her turn, “I beg your pardon, but did those huge boxes contain the leaden statue of King George, as my father’s letter advised us?”

“It was cut in pieces, Betty,” said Pamela demurely.

“As if I didn’t know that,” flashed out Betty; “and that it disappeared after the patriots hauled it down in Bowling Green, and that General Washington recommended it should be used for the cause of Freedom, and that we are all to help transform it into bullets far our soldiers,—­truly, Pamela, I have not forgot my father’s account of it,” and Betty vanished inside the door with a rebellious toss of her head, resenting the implied air of older sister which Pamela sometimes indulged in.

“Our little Moppet has come perilously near death,” said Miss Euphemia, following Pamela into the house.  “She has been rescued from drowning in Great Pond by a gentleman whom Betty had never seen before.  She describes him as a fine personable youth, and I think it maybe Oliver’s friend, young Otis, who in expected at the Tracys’ on a visit from Boston.”

“It can hardly be he, aunt,” said Pamela, “for Sally Tracy has just told me that he will not arrive for two days, and moreover he comes with Mrs. Footer and Patty Warren, who are glad to take him as escort in these troublous times, I will run up to Moppet, for the girls are waiting for you; the lead got somewhat overheated, and they want your advice as to using it.”

Miss Euphemia went slowly down the hall and through the large dining-room, pausing as she passed to knock at a small door opening off the hall into a sitting-room.

“Are you there, Miss Bidwell?” she said, as a small elderly woman, with bent figure and pleasant, shrewd face, rose from her chair in response.  “Will you kindly go up and see that Miss Moppet be properly rubbed and made dry, and let her take her hot posset, and then, if not too tired, she may come to me in the kitchen.”

Miss Bidwell, who was at once house-keeper, manager, and confidential servant to the Wolcott household, gave a cheerful affirmative; and as she laid down the stocking she was carefully darning, and prepared to leave the room, Miss Euphemia resumed her interrupted walk toward the kitchen.

Standing and sitting around the great kitchen fireplace were a group of young people, whose voices rose in a lively chorus as she entered.  Over the fire, on a crane, hung a large kettle, from the top of which issued sounds of spluttering and boiling, and a young man was in the act of endeavoring to lift it amid cries of remonstrance.

“Have a care, Francis,” cried a pretty, roguish-looking girl in a gray homespun gown, brandishing a wet towel as she spoke; “hot lead will be your portion if you dare trifle with that boiling pot.  What are we to do with it, Miss Euphemia?” as that lady came forward in haste; “a few drops of water flirted out of my towel and must have fallen inside, for ’t is spluttering in terrific fashion.”