"To intercede for him?"

"No--to stay here with you always. He said I was like a little sister.

And I promised. Uncle Win, if you will keep me I will be your little girl all my life long. I will never leave you. I love you very dearly.

For since Uncle Leverett went away I have given you both loves."

She stood there in silence many minutes. Oh, how comforting was the clasp of the soft arms about his neck, how consoling the dear, assuring voice!

"Will you tell me about it?" he said at length.

She was a wise little thing, though I think her chief wisdom lay in her desire not to give anyone pain. Some few sentences she left out, others she softened.

"Oh," she said beseechingly, "you will not be angry with him, Uncle Winthrop? I think it is very brave and heroic in him. It is like some of the old soldiers in the Latin stories. I shall study hard now, so I can read about them all. And I shall pray all the time that the war will come to an end. We shall be so proud and glad when he returns. And then you will have two children again."

"Yes--we will hope for the war to end speedily. It ought never to have begun. What can we do against an enemy that has a hundred arms ready to destroy us? Little Doris, I am glad to have you."

Winthrop Adams was not a man to talk over his sorrows. He had been wounded to the quick. He had not dreamed that his son would disregard his wishes. His fatherly pride was up in arms. But he did not turn his wounded side to the world. He quietly admitted that his son had gone to Annapolis, and received the congratulations of friends who sincerely believed it was time to strike.

Salem was busy at her wharves, where peaceable merchantmen were being transformed into war vessels. Charlestown was all astir, and sailors donned the uniform proudly. New York and Baltimore joined in the general activity. The _Constellation_ was fitting out at Norfolk. The _Chesapeake_, the _United States_, and the _President_ were to be made famous on history's page. Privateers without number were hurried to the fore.

The _Constitution_ had quite a reception in New York, and she started out with high endeavors. She had not gone far, however, before she found herself followed by three British frigates, and among them the _Guerriere_, whose captain Commodore Hull had met in New York. To be captured in this manner--for fighting against such odds would be of no avail--was not to be thought of, so there was nothing but a race before him. If he could reach Boston he would save his ship and his men, and somewhere perhaps gain a victory.

Ah, what a race it was! The men put forth all their strength, all their ingenuity. At times it seemed as if capture was imminent. By night and by day, trying every experiment, working until they dropped from sheer fatigue, and after an hour or two of rest going at it again--Captain Hull kept her well to the windward, and with various maneuverings puzzled the pursuers. Then Providence favored them with a fine, driving rain, and she flew along in the darkness of the night, hardly daring to hope, but at dawn, after a three days' race, Boston was in sight, and her enemies were left behind.

But that was not in any sense a complete victory, and she started out again to face her enemy and conquer if she could, for her captain knew the British ship _Guerriere_ was lying somewhere in wait for her.

Everybody prayed and hoped. Firing was heard, but at such a distance from the harbor nothing could be decided.

The frontier losses had been depressing in the extreme. Boston had hung her flags at half-mast for the brave dead. But suddenly a report came that the _Constitution_ had been victorious, and that the _Guerriere_ after having been disabled beyond any power of restoration, had been sent to a watery grave.

In a moment it seemed as if the whole town was in a transport of joy.

Flags were waving everywhere, and a gayly decorated flotilla went out in the harbor to greet the brave battle-scarred veteran. And when the tale of the great victory ran from lip to lip the rejoicing was unbounded. A national salute was fired, which was returned from the ship. The streets were in festive array and crowded with people who could not restrain their wild rejoicing. The _Guerriere_, which was to drive the insolent striped bunting from the face of the seas, had been swept away in a brief hour and a half, and the bunting waved above her grave. That night the story was told over in many a home. The loss of the _Constitution_ had been very small compared to that of the _Guerriere_, which had twenty-three dead and fifty-six wounded; and Captain Dacres headed the list of prisoners.

There was a grand banquet at the Exchange Coffee House. The freedom of the city was presented to Captain Hull, and New York sent him a handsome sword. Congress voted him a gold medal, and Philadelphia a service of plate.

At one blow the prestige of invincibility claimed for the British navy was shattered. And now the _Constitution's_ earlier escape from the hot chase of the three British frigates was understood to be a great race for the nation's honor and welfare, as well as for their own lives, and at last the baffled pursuers, out-sailed, out-maneuvered, dropped behind with no story of success to tell, and were to gnaw their hearts in bitterness when they heard of this glorious achievement.

Uncle Winthrop took Doris and Betty out in the carriage that they might see the great rejoicing from all points. Everywhere one heard bits of the splendid action and the intrepidity of Captain Hull and his men.

"I only wish Cary had been in it," said Betty with sparkling eyes.

Warren told them that when Lieutenant Read came on deck with Captain Hull's "compliments, and wished to know if they had struck their flag,"

Captain Dacres replied:

"Well--I don't know. Our mizzenmast is gone, our mainmast is gone, and I think you may say on the whole that we have struck our flag."

One of the points that pleased Mr. Adams very much was the official report of Captain Dacres, who "wished to acknowledge, as a matter of courtesy, that the conduct of Captain Hull and his officers to our men had been that of a brave enemy; the greatest care being taken to prevent our losing the smallest trifle, and the kindest attention being paid to the wounded."

More than one officer was to admit the same fact before the war ended, even if we did not receive the like consideration from our enemies.

"I only wish Cary had been on the _Constitution_," said Betty eagerly.

"I should be proud of the fact to my dying day, and tell it over to my grandchildren."

A tint of color wavered over Uncle Winthrop's pale face. No one mentioned Cary, out of a sincere regard for his father, except people outside who did not know the truth of his sudden departure; though many of his young personal friends were aware of his interest and his study on the subject.

Old Boston had a gala time surely. The flags floated for days, and everyone wore a kind of triumphant aspect. That her own ship, built with so much native work and equipments, should be the first to which a British frigate should strike her colors was indeed a triumph. Though there were not wanting voices across the sea to say the _Guerriere_ should have gone down with flying colors, but even that would have been impossible.

Miss Recompense and Uncle Winthrop began to discuss Revolutionary times, and Doris listened with a great deal of interest. She delighted to identify herself strongly with her adopted country, and in her secret heart she was proud of Cary, though she could not be quite sure he was right in the step he had taken. They missed him so much. She tried in many ways to make up the loss, and her devotion went to her uncle's heart.

If they could only hear! Not to know where he was seemed so hard to bear.

CHAPTER XX

A VISITOR FOR DORIS

Doris was in the little still-room, as it was called--a large sort of pantry shelved on one side, and with numerous drawers and a kind of dresser with glass doors on another. By the window there were a table and the dainty little still where Miss Recompense made perfumes and extracts. There were boxes of sweet herbs, useful ones, bottles of medicinal cordials and salves. Miss Recompense was a "master hand" at such things, and the neighbors around thought her as good as a doctor.

It was so fragrant in this little room that Doris always had a vague impression of a beautiful country. She had a kind of poetical temperament, and she hoped some day to be able to write verses. Helen Chapman had written a pretty song for a friend's birthday and had it set to music. The quartette sang it so well that the leading paper had praised it. There was no one she could confess her secret ambition to, but if she ever _did_ achieve anything she would confide in Uncle Winthrop. So she sat here with all manner of vague, delightful ideas floating through her brain, steeped with the fragrance of balms and odors.

"Please, 'm," and Dinah stood in the door in all the glory of her gay afternoon turban, which seemed to make her face more black and shining--"Please, 'm, dere's a young sojer man jus' come. He got a bundle an' he say he got strict d'rections to gib it to missy. An'

here's de ticket."

"Oh, for me!" Doris took it eagerly and read aloud, "Lieutenant E. D.

Hawthorne." "Oh, Miss Recompense, it's from Cary, I know," and for a moment she looked undecided.

Miss Recompense had on her morning gown, rather faded, though she had changed it for dinner. Her sleeves were pushed above the elbow, her hands were a little stained, and just now she could not leave her concoction without great injury to it, though it was evidently improper for a child like Doris, or indeed a young lady, to see a strange gentleman alone. And Mr. Adams was out.

Doris cut the Gordian knot by flashing through the kitchen and entering the lower end of the hall. The young man stood viewing "The Destruction of the Spanish Armada." But he turned at the sort of bird-like flutter and glanced at the vision that all his life long he thought the prettiest sight he had ever beheld.

She had on a simple white frock, though it was one of her best, with a narrow embroidered ruffle around the bottom that Madam Royall had given her. When it was a little crumpled she put it on for afternoon wear. The neck was cut a small square with a bit of edging around it, gathered with a pink ribbon tied in a bow in front. She still wore her hair in ringlets; it did not seem to grow very fast, but she had been promoted to a pompadour, the front hair being brushed up over a cushion. That left innumerable short ends to curl in tiny tendrils about her forehead.

Oddly enough, too, she had on a pink apron Betty had made out of the best breadth of a pink India lawn frock she had worn out. It had pretty pockets with a bow of the same.

"Miss Doris Adams," exclaimed the young lieutenant. "I should have known you in a minute, although you are----" He paused and flushed, for Cary had said, "She isn't exactly handsome, but very sweet-looking with pretty, eager eyes and fair hair." He checked himself suddenly, understanding the impropriety of paying her the compliment on the end of his tongue, but he thought her an enchanting picture. "You are larger than I supposed. Adams always said 'My little cousin.'"

"I was little when I first came. And I have grown ever so much this summer--since Cary went away. Oh, have you seen him? How is he? Where is he?"

Doris had a soft and curiously musical voice, the sound that lingered with a sort of cadence. Her eyes shone in eager expectation, her curved red lips were dewy sweet.

"He is well. He has sailed on the _United States_ as midshipman. I saw him at Annapolis--indeed, we came quite near being on the same vessel.

He is a fine young fellow, but he doesn't look a day over eighteen. And there _is_ a family resemblance," but he thought Doris would make a much handsomer young woman than Cary would a young man. "And I have a small packet for you that I was to deliver to no one else."

He held it out to her with a smile. It was sealed, and was also secured with a bit of cord, which, of course, should have been a thread of silk, but we saved our refinements of chivalry for other purposes.

"He is going to make a fine, earnest, patriotic sailor. You will never hear anything about him that you need be ashamed of. He told me his father wasn't quite reconciled to the step, but after this splendid victory in Boston harbor--to strain a little point," laughingly, "the town may well be proud of the courageous navy. And I hope you will hear good news of him. One thing you may be sure of--he will never show the white feather."

Oh, how her eyes glistened! There were tears in them as well.