“And we’ll never know if Amaryllis explained that she had ever loved him,” groaned Tabitha.

“If ever I get the chance!” remarked Janice, suggestively.

“Oh, Jan!” cried Tabitha, ecstatically.  “Would n’t it be delightsome to be loved by a peasant, and to find he was a prince and that he had disguised himself to test thy love?”

“’T would be better fun to know he was a prince and torture him by pretending you did n’t care for him,” replied Janice.  “Men are so teasable.”

“There’s Philemon Hennion doffing his hat to us, Jan.”

“The great big gawk!” exclaimed Janice.  “Does he want another dish of tea?” A question which set both girls laughing.

“Janice!  Tabitha!” rebuked Mrs. Meredith.  “Don’t be flippant on the Sabbath.”

The two faces assumed demureness, and, filing into the Presbyterian meeting-house, their owners apparently gave strict heed to a sermon of the Rev. Alexander McClave, which was later issued from the press of Isaac Collins, at Burlington, under the title of:—­

“The Doleful State of the Damned, Especially such as go to Hell from under the Gospel.”

II THE PRINCE FROM OVER THE SEAS

Across the water sounded the bells of Christ Church as the anchor of the brig “Boscawen,” ninety days out from Cork Harbour, fell with a splash into the Delaware River in the fifteenth year of the reign of George III., and of grace, 1774.  To those on board, the chimes brought the first intimation that it was Sunday, for three months at sea with nothing to mark one day from another deranges the calendar of all but the most heedful.  Among the uncouth and ill-garbed crowd that pressed against the waist-boards of the brig, looking with curious eyes toward Philadelphia, several, as the sound of the bells was heard, might have been observed to cross themselves, while one or two of the women began to tell their beads, praying perhaps that the breadth of the just-crossed Atlantic lay between them and the privation and want which had forced emigration upon them, but more likely giving thanks that the dangers and suffering of the voyage were over.

Scarcely had the anchor splashed, and before the circling ripples it started had spread a hundred feet, when a small boat put off from one of the wharfs lining the water front of the city, with the newly arrived ship as an evident destination; and the brig had barely swung to the current when the hoarse voice of the mate was heard ordering the ladder over the side.  The preparation to receive the boat drew the attention of the crowd, and they stared at its occupants with an intentness which implied some deeper interest than mere curiosity; low words were exchanged, and some of the poor frightened creatures seemed to take on a greater cringe.

[Illustration:  “’T is sunrise at Greenwood.”]