“I am troubled about that pretty little Marquise.”

“She is clever and full of resource.  I have had only one letter from her since her marriage, and it was written to the word ‘glories!’ She seemed to be living in a blaze of triumph and very happy.  But change is the order of the day in France.”

“Say of the hour, and you are nearer the truth.”

“If Arenta is in trouble she will cry out, and call for help on every hand.  I never knew her to make a mistake where her own interests were concerned.  I told her father yesterday that it would be very difficult to corner Arenta, and comforted him beyond my hope.”

During this conversation Annie was in a reverie which it in no way touched.  She had the faculty of shutting her ears to sounds she did not wish to take into her consciousness, and the French Revolution did not exist for her.  She was thinking all the time of her Cousin George, and of the singular abruptness with which his love life had been cut short; and it was this train of thought which led her—­when the murmur of voices ceased for a moment—­to say impulsively: 

“Uncle, it is my desire to go to Philadelphia,” The Earl looked at her with incredulity.  “What nonsense, Annie!” he exclaimed.  “The thing is impossible.”

“Why impossible?”

“For you, I mean.  You would be very ill before the journey was half-finished.  The roads, as George will tell you, are nearly impassable; and the weather after this fog may be intensely cold.  For you a journey to Philadelphia would be an arduous undertaking, and one without any reasonable motive.”

“Oh, indeed!  Do you call George Washington an unreasonable motive?  I wish to see him.  Imagine me within one hundred miles of this supreme hero, and turning back to England without kissing his hand.  I should be laughed at—­I should deserve to be laughed at.”

“Yes, if the journey were an easier one.”

“To be sure, the roads and the cold will be trials; but then my uncle, you can give them to me, as God gives trials to His Beloved.  He breaks them up into small portions, and puts a night’s sleep between the portions.  Can you not also do this?”

“You little Methodist!” answered the Earl, with a tender gleam in his eyes.  “I see that I shall have to give you your own way.  Will you go with us, George?”

“It will be a relief.  New York is in the dumps.  Little Burr having beaten the Schuyler faction, thinks himself omnipotent; and this quarrel between Mr. Jay and Governor Clinton keeps every one else on the edge of ill-humour.  All the dancing part of the town are gone to Philadelphia; I have scarcely a partner left; and there is no conversation now in New York that is not political.  Burr, Schuyler, Jay, Clinton! even the clergy have gone horse and foot into these disputes.”

“Burr has a kind of cleverness; one must admit that.”

“He is under the curse of knowing everything.”