We heeded little the fact
that the colonies meant to convene another general congress at
Philadelphia, or that certain colonial assemblies had done thus and
so, and certain local committees decided upon this or that. 'Twould
all blow over, of course, as the Stamp Act trouble had done; the
seditious class in Boston would soon be overawed, and the king would
then concede, of his gracious will, what the malcontents had failed to
obtain by their violent demands. Such a thing as actual rebellion,
real war, was to us simply inconceivable. I believe now that Philip
had earlier and deeper thoughts on the subject than I had: indeed
events showed that he must have had: but he kept them to himself. And
far other and lighter subjects occupied our minds as he and I started
for a walk out the Bowery lane one balmy Sunday morning in April, the
twenty-third day of the month.
Mr. and Mrs. Faringfield, Fanny, and Tom, had gone to church. Philip
and I boasted of too much philosophical reading to be churchgoers, and
I had let my mother walk off to Trinity with a neighbour. As for
Margaret, she stayed home because she was now her own mistress and had
a novel to read, out of the last parcel received from London. We left
her on the rear veranda, amidst the honeysuckle vines that climbed the
trellis-work.
"I've been counting the weeks," she said to Phil, as we were about to
set forth. "Only seven more Sundays.
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