"Why, you can have a pony next summer," said Uncle Win. "I am very fond of riding."

Doris' face was filled with speechless delight.

After supper they sat round the fire and Cary asked her about the Old Boston. She had very good descriptive powers. Her life had been so circumscribed there that it had deepened impressions, and the young fellow listened quite surprised. Like his father he had known very little about girls in their childhood. She was so quaintly pretty, too, with the bow of dark ribbon high up on her head, amid the waving light hair.

Some time after Uncle Winthrop said:

"Doris, I have a letter from Miss Arabella. Would you not like to come in the study and read it?"

"Oh, yes," and she sprang up with the lightness of a bird.

He had cut around the great black seal. Sometime Doris might be glad to have the letter intact. There were no envelopes then besides those used for state purposes.

"Dear and Respected Sir," it began in the formal, old-fashioned manner.

She had been rejoiced to hear of Doris' safe arrival and continued good health, and every day she saw the wisdom of the change, though she had missed the child sorely. Her sister had passed peacefully away soon after the departure of Doris, a loss to be accepted with resignation, since her life on earth had long ceased to have any satisfaction to herself. Her own health was very much broken, and she knew it would not be long before she should join those who had preceded her in a better land. When this occurred there would be some articles forwarded to him for Doris, and again she commended the little girl to his affectionate interest and care, and hoped she would grow into a sweet and useful womanhood and be all her parents could wish if they had lived.

"Dear Miss Arabella!" Doris wiped the tears from her eyes. How strange the little room must look without Miss Henrietta sitting at the window babbling of childish things! "And she is all alone with Barby. How sad it must be. I should not like to live alone."

Unconsciously she drew nearer Uncle Winthrop. He put his arm over her shoulder in a caressing manner, and his heart was moved with sympathy for the solitary lady across the ocean.

Doris thought of Aunt Priscilla and wondered whether she ever was lonesome.

Sunday was still bright, and somehow felt warm when contrasted with the biting weather of the last ten days. The three went to old Trinity Church, that stood then on a corner of Summer Street--a plain wooden building with a gambrel roof, quite as old-fashioned inside as out, and even now three-quarters of a century old. Up to the Revolution the king and the queen, when there was one, had been prayed for most fervently.

The Church conceded this point reluctantly, since there were many who doubted the success of the struggle. But the clergy had resigned from King's Chapel and Christ Church. For a long while afterward Dr. Mather Byles had kept himself before the people by his wit and readiness for controversy, and the two old ladies, his sisters, were well known for their adherence to Royalist costumes and the unction with which they prayed for the king in their own house--with open windows, in summer.

In fact, even now Episcopalianism was considered rather foreign than of a home growth. But there had been such a divergence from the old-time faiths that people's prejudices were much softened.

It seemed quite natural again to Doris, and she had no difficulty in finding her places, though Cary offered her his prayer book every time.

And it sounded so hearty to say "Amen" to the prayers, to respond to the commandments, and sing some of the old chants.

There was a short service in the afternoon, and in the evening she and Cary sang hymns. They were getting to be very good friends. Then on Christmas morning they all went again. There was a little "box and fir,"

and a branch of hemlock in the corner, but the people of that day would have been horrified at the greenery and the flowers met to hail the birth of Christ to-day.

They paused in the vestibule to give each other a cordial greeting, for the congregation was not very large.

A fine-looking elderly lady shook hands with Mr. Adams and his son.

"This is my little niece from abroad," announced the elder, "another of the Adams family. Her father was own nephew to Cousin Charles. Doris, this is Madam Royall."

"Poor Charles. Yes, I remember him well. Our children spied out the little girl in the sleigh with you on Saturday, and made no end of guesses. Is it the child who attends Mrs. Webb's school? Dorcas Payne goes there this winter, and she has been teasing to have her name changed to Doris, which she admires beyond measure."

"Yes," answered Doris timidly, as Madam Royall seemed addressing her. "I know Dorcas Payne."

"Oh, Mr. Adams, I have just thought--our children are going to have a little time to-night--not anything as pretentious as a party, a sort of Christmas frolic. Will you not come around and bring Cary and the little girl? You shall have some Christmas cake and wine with us, Cary can take tea with Isabel and Alice, and the little girl can have a good romp.

Please do not refuse."

Cary flushed. Mr. Adams looked undecided.

"No, you shall not hunt about for an excuse. Dorcas has talked so much about the little girl that we are all curious to see her. Shouldn't you like a frolic with other little girls, my dear?"

Doris smiled with assenting eagerness.

"We shall surely look for you. I shall tell them all that you are coming, and that I have captured little Doris Adams."

"Very well," returned Mr. Adams.

"At four, exactly. The children's supper is at five."

Doris had tight hold of Uncle Winthrop's hand, and if she had not just come out of church she must have skipped for very gladness. For Dorcas Payne had talked about her cousins, the Royalls, and their charming grandmother, and the good times they had in their fine large house.

Uncle Win looked her all over as she sat at the dinner table. She was a pretty child, with her hair gathered up high and falling in a golden shower. Her frock was some gray woolen stuff, and he wondered vaguely if blue or red would have been better. He had seen little girls in red frocks; they looked so warm and comfortable in winter. Elizabeth Leverett would be shocked at the color, he knew. What made so many women afraid of it, and why did they cling to dismal grays and browns? He wished he knew a little more about girls.

They had a splendid young goose for the Christmas dinner, vegetables and pickles and jellies. Cider was used largely then; no hearty dinner would have been the thing without it. Even the Leveretts used that, while they frowned on all other beverages. And then the thick mince pie with a crust that fairly melted before you could chew it! One needed something to sustain him through the long cold winter, and the large rooms where you shivered if you went out of the chimney corner.

Doris stole a little while for her enchanting Primrose people, though Cary kept teasing by saying: "Has Moses gone to the Fair? Just wait until you see the sort of bargains he makes!"

Uncle Winthrop went out to Miss Recompense.

"She looks very plain for a little--well, I suppose it _is_ a party, and I dare say there is another frock at the Leveretts'. I think the first time I saw her she had on something very pretty--silk, I believe it was.

But there is no time to get it. Recompense, if you could find a ribbon or any suitable adornment to brighten her up. In that big bureau upstairs--I wish you would look."

Years ago the pretty things had been laid away. Recompense went over them every spring during house-cleaning time, to see that moths had not disturbed them. Thieves were never thought of. She always touched them with a delicate regard for the young wife she had never known.

She put a shawl about her now and went upstairs, unlocked the drawer of "trinkets," and peered into some of the boxes. Oh, here was a pretty bit of lace, simple enough for a child. White ribbons turned to cream, pale-blue grown paler with age, stiff brocaded ones, and down at the very bottom a rose color with just a simple silvery band crossing it at intervals. There was enough for a sash and a bow for the hair, and with the lace tucker it would be all right.

"Doris," she called over the baluster.

"Yes, ma'am," and Doris came tripping up, book in hand.

"Your uncle wants you fixed up a bit," she said, "and as you have nothing here I have looked up a few things. Let me fasten the tucker in your frock. There, that does look better. Madam Royall is quite dressy, like all fashionable people who go out and have company. I'm not much of a hand to fix up children, seeing that for years I have had none of it to do. But I guess I can manage to tie the sash. There, I think that will do."

"Oh, how lovely! How good of you, Miss Recompense."

Recompense Gardiner hated to take the credit for anything she had not done, but she had to let it go now.

"How to get this ribbon in your hair! I think it is too wide."

"Oh, can I have that too? Well, you see, you take up the curls this way and put the ribbon under. Can it be folded? Then you tie it on the top."

Miss Recompense did not make a very artistic bow, but Doris looked in the glass of the dressing table, and pulled and patted it a little, and said it was right and that she was a thousand times grateful.

The sober-minded woman admitted within herself that the child was greatly improved. Perhaps gay attire _did_ foster vanity, yet it was pleasant for others to look upon.

"Run down and ask your uncle if you will do," exclaimed Miss Recompense, feeling that by his approval she would discharge her conscience from the sin, if sin it were.

She looked so dainty as she came and stood by him, and asked her question with such a bewitching flush, that he kissed her on the forehead for approval. But she put her soft young arms about his neck and kissed him back, and he held her there with a strange new warmth stirring his heart.

The old Royall house in Summer Street went its way three-quarters of a century ago. No one dreams now of the beautiful garden that surrounded it, and the blossoming shrubbery and beds of flowers from which nosegays were sent to friends, and the fruit distributed later on. It was an old house then, a great square, two-story building with a cupola railed around a flat place at the point of the roof, or what would have been the point if carried up. There were some rooms built out at the back, and an arbor--a covered sort of _allee_ where the ladies sat and sewed at times and the children played. Thirty years before there had been many a meeting of friends to discuss the state of affairs. There had been disagreements, ruptures, quarrels made and healed. George Royall had gone back to England. Dwight Royall had fought on the side of the "Rebels." One daughter had married an English officer who had surrendered with Cornwallis and then returned to his native land. A younger son had married and died, and left two daughters to his mother's care, their own mother being dead. A widowed daughter had come home to live with her four children, the two youngest being girls. Dorcas Payne was a cousin to them on their father's side.