"And I, worse than without a dollar," said General George Rogers. "My private property has been sacrificed to pay public debts."
But from what old treasure stores did those girls bring garments, homespun and new and woolly and warm, prepared against this day of reunion? The soldiers were children again around their father's hearth, with mother's socks upon their feet and sister's arms around their necks.
Jonathan, famous for his songs, broke forth in a favourite refrain from Robin Hood:—
And mony ane sings o' corn,
And mony ane sings o' Robin Hood
Kens little where he was born.
Nor in the painted bower,
But it was in the gude greenwood
Amang the lily flower."
"And you call us lily flowers?" cried Fanny, the beauty and the pet. "The lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do they spin; and here have we been spinning for weeks and weeks to dress you boys again."
"And what has William been doing?"
"Learning to follow in the footsteps of my brothers," answered the lad of thirteen. "Another year and I, too, could have gone as a drummer boy."
"Thank God, you'll never have to," ejaculated the General solemnly.
The old house rang with merriment as it had not in years. The negroes, York and old York and Rose his wife, Jane and Julia and Cupid and Harry, and Nancy the cook, were jubilantly preparing a feast for welcome.
Other guests were there,—Colonel Anderson, aide-de-camp of Lafayette, who was to wed Elizabeth, the sister next older than William; and Charles Mynn Thruston, son of the "Fighting Parson," and Dennis Fitzhugh, daft lovers of the romping Fanny.
Since before the Revolution Jonathan had been engaged to Sarah Hite, the daughter of Joist Hite, first settler of
