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At the kitchen window of a well-built house overlooking the ocean, Miss Esther Starbuck glanced from her spinning-wheel to see the scarlet-cloaked figure and the figure in dark smail-clothes coming hand in hand.

"Nathaniel will spoil that child. I wonder, Content, that thee allows her to be so indulged. Look, pray, and see the two running like little ones at frolic!"

Dame Content swung into place on the crane over the open fire an iron pot of succotash which she had been stirring, and joined her sister-in-law at the window. Her calm face lighted more sweetly as she looked.

"They keep together excellently well." "Keep together excellently well," mimicked Miss Esther. "Surely, Content, thy daughter Ruth is too old for such sport. At eighteen she should be of a woman's ways.

As for Nathaniel, methinks he is over given to undignified demeanor for one whose father was a Friend."

Miss Esther's fault-finding was interrupted by the opening of the outer door, which let in father and daughter-he panting, she with cheeks wild-rose red.

"The little maid drew me into it," he replied to his wife's questioning eyes. ""Tis ever the woman who leads the man astray," sniffed Miss Esther.

"And thou hast escaped great evil in not having man to lead astray, eh, Esther?" Then, as his sister's pale face flushed, and she put her hand to her throat with pained motion, he said very gently: "We Starbucks are of hasty speech despite our Quaker blood. Forgive me, Esther! I forgot thy sailor who sleeps somewhere out at sea. As for our haste-we have good news. The little maid and I would tell it apace."

He held up the folded sheet with its broken seal of red wax, and his wife came toward him as drawn by a magnet. "From our Nathaniel!" Ruth added joyfully:

Dame Content hovered near, like one who scarce could wait for tidings which her mother heart was spelling ere she listened Miss Esther spun on beside the window that gave a view of the gray ocean.

"Most honored parents," wrote young Nathaniel, "my ship made port yesterday, and I shall be with you at Thanksgiving if no ill befalls. By the vessel which carries this I send to you a box of tea, also a coral necklace for Ruth. The trinket was got by Captain Morris, under whom I voyaged, and at whose home here in Boston city I am stopping. When I come, I bring the Captain with me. He says he fain would see a certain little girl of Nantucket with his necklace on. I am, most honored sir and madam, your ever affectionate and dutiful son."

"Dear boy!" murmured Dame Content. "I would I knew what day he comes. Then I could have fresh popovers awaiting him. When he was no higher than my knee he would beg for popovers."

Ruth pulled a stool to the fire and threw off her scarlet cloak.

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Her father looked around, and something in the dreaminess of her face smote him to pain. Then he met her mother's eyes regarding him with such unalloyed happiness that the half-thought died before its birth. But Miss Esther could not let Ruth's girlish wondering pass unchidden.

"If this Captain be young or no, 'tis not thee he comes visiting, silly one! Thou hast only to drop him a curtsy and sit silent, as maiden should. See thy cloak! It hath fallen on the floor. 'Twere well if thee had less thought for trinkets and more for caring after thy garments." Then she looked out of the window, adding in milder tone: "Here is Cesar and a box. Thy necklace, no doubt."

Ruth was at the door before Cesar, the "And just think, mother, he keeps slave boy, could open it. Her flower face Thanksgiving feast with us!"

"God willing," said her father, reverently. "But we will read the letter. Fetch my eyes, little maid."

She brought his horn-rimmed spectacles and leaned upon his shoulder as he sat in his favorite chair beside the hearth.

sparkled such radiant expectation that his white teeth showed sympathetically in his ebon countenance. He stood by, staring and grinning, as the box was opened. Ruth clasped the necklace about her throat, and turned to her father for approval, which was readily given. Dame

Content and Miss Esther were talking over the tea.

"I know not just how it should be prepared," said the dame, with the anxiety of a good cook. ""Tis a new dish to us here on Nantucket." "Is it to be drunk, or eaten with a spoon?" asked Miss Esther. "Methinks our cousin Olivia Starbuck was telling but a while s nce of having drunk some in Boston city. She said it was served with cream and sugar, or with the one, or neither, as persons fancied. Yet it may be she eat it boiled tender."

"Before Nathaniel's letter was finished reading I had planned a party of our cousins to welcome him at Thanksgiving feast, and thought to give each one a dish of tea. But if 'tis to be eaten, and doth not swell greatly, this small boxful will scarce make the twenty of us a taste apiece," said Dame Content. "In sooth, though, 'tis the first tea known on Nantucket," she added, with pardonable pride. "Cesar, did the captain of the vessel that fetched this say nothing about it?"

Cesar ducked, with widening ivories. "Yes, missus. He say, Here's a box ob tea fo' de Justice' folks,' he say. 'An' tell 'em not use it too free, 'kase it a shillin' a leaf.'"

"A shilling a leaf!" the two women echoed with such dismayed faces that Nathaniel Starbuck smiled and said the Captain spoke in jest, though, truth to tell, this Chinese herb was extravagantly dear. Ruth laughingly popped one of the precious leaves between her rosy lips, then made a wry mouth.

""Tis sore puckery. I think Nathaniel might have sent something more palatable."

Her mother shook a reproving head. "Nathaniel knew we should value it for its great rarity, my daughter. Think, Cesar-did Captain Nahut say nothing more about the tea ?"

Cesar ducked and grinned again.

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Such scrubbing of oaken floors, such polishing of pewter and silverware, such brewing and baking as reigned in the Starbuck mansion during those days preceding Thanksgiving! Nathaniel Starbuck declared that his women folk were no respecters of persons through festival preparations, for even the island magistrate was pressed into service when the others were busy elsewhere. Dinah and Chloe snickered at Cesar, who rolled eyes prodigiously over seeing "master," with apron tied about his neck and choppingknife in hand, beating lively rhythm in the bowl of mince-meat, all three getting their ears cuffed by their parents, Daniel and Sukey, who had grown up in the Starbuck family, and who, calling them "onregenerate chiliens fo' mekin' master 'dickerlous," set them at onion-peeling until they shed tears of repentance. Dame Content measured and weighed and tasted, Miss Esther beat and mixed and rolled, until the pantry shelves were loaded with such delicious eatables as only old-fashioned housewives could compound; Ruth flitted about like a bird, now brightening a silver tankard, again wiping a bit of rare china, and singing-ever singing some quaint English ditty which begot new graciousness from her linnet voice.

On the eve before Thanksgiving everything was ready for the morrow's feast and guests. The floor of the large state parlor was newly waxed, the furniture repolished, samplers worked by Dame Content herself had been pinned on either side of the high carved mantel above the tiled fireplace, and now the sacred apartment was closed against the festival. The servants were story-telling in the back kitchen, and in the front kitchen sat the family with the light of the open fire dancing over the whitely scoured floor, throwing sparkles among the dishes in the dresser, and showing festoons of red peppers, sliced apples, and pumpkins hung to dry from the rafters. The spinning-wheel stood by the wall as on the Sabbath Day, but Dame Content and Miss Esther knitted long stockings like those Nathaniel Starbuck with knee-breeches and buckled shoes, the bright needles flashing through

wore

Even Miss Esther smiled as Cesar shuf- their fingers as the fire-glow struck the fled out.

"It seems 'tis to be drunken, then, Content," she said,

steel. All had looked for young Nathaniel during the day, and now, with that weariness which follows unrealized anticipation,

had set themselves to think of his coming the next morning.

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'Tis pity I made those popovers," sighed Dame Content. They are only crisp when fresh done, and Nathaniel ever liked them crisp. Ruth, child, I wish thee would—”

But Ruth never knew what wish might have been spoken, for just then the outer door opened, and some one was kissing her mother as only a loving son who had been absent long could kiss her; some one warmly clasped Aunt Esther; shook her father's hand as never to let it go; then she herself was caught in a great embrace, was conscious that Nathaniel had grown mustaches, that he was saying, "This is the little sister to whom you sent the necklace," that a pleasantly modulated voice stammered, "Your servant, mistress," as a tall man with a fine heat over all his bronzed face bowed low to her fluttered curtsy, adding something about expecting to find the little sister a child-and Ruth knew that the Captain was not only young but handsome, and wished she wore other than this old linsey-woolsey frock, which Aunt Esther had darned in the front breadth !

But the Captain could hardly have noticed the darn, as he did not so much as glance at the linsey-woolsey frock; when he turned to her his eyes rested upon her flower face with a lingering surprise which brought an amused curl to the mustaches of young Nathaniel as he sat beside Aunt Esther, answering his father's questions and eating his mother's popovers, while with covert satisfaction he watched his little sister and the Captain talking together on the settle.

Nor was it her frock at which the Captain looked on the morrow, when, as the dinner hour drew near, Ruth, in her best finery, tripped down the stairs from her chamber and on to the parlor, where grouped her father. Nathaniel, and the Captain-three striking figures, displaying to advantage the dress suits of the period.

""Tis whi-pered about Boston city and other large ports that a revolution will come to the colonies because of charter infringements," young Nathaniel was saying boldly. "Some think the seat of home government should be at home, and we should be a free people. Indeed, this is the talk with many, sir.”

The elder Nathaniel frowned, and beat his foot upon the tiled hearth until the paste shoe-buckle flashed again.

"Tut, tut, boy! I harbor no treason to King George under this roof. Didst ever know a Starbuck traitor, though Quaker he might be?" Then the frown passed, as, following the Captain's glance to the doorway, he saw Ruth, half ready for flight at finding only the masculine element represented. "Come hither, little maid in fine feathers, and give us Thanks Day greeting."

Ruth's high-heeled slippers clicked across the waxed floor, and the men rose as she came. A pretty sight she was, truly, in white lace stomacher and blue silk frock which matched her eyes and set off dazzlingly the fairness of hair and complexion. complexion. Captain Morris could scarce be blamed for wishing that the kiss she dropped on the cheek of father and brother might extend to the stranger within their gates. Perhaps young Nathaniel's shrewd wit divined his friend's feelings, for, pulling the soft curls, he asked roguishly:

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Have you no thanks for the trinket, little sister?"

Whereupon the coral necklace above the lace stomacher was not pinker than Ruth's face. But she murmured, with charming naïveté and equally charming curtsy, "Your debtor, sir"—and straightway clicked from the room, while the also blushing Captain looked after her.

In the kitchen Dame Content, Miss Esther, and Sukey were holding solemn conclave over cooking the tea. Must it be a porringerful to each guest, or would a large spoonful apiece suffice? They compromised by dividing the difference, and a quart of the precious leaves went into the new bell-metal teakettle with a gallon of cold water. Then the brass knocker on the front door rapped announcement of first arrivals, and the women left Sukey to watch that the kettle did not boil dry.

The parlor soon held all who were bidden to dinner-Starbucks young and old and middle-aged, Starbucks married and single, Starbucks plain and pretty. Yet not one of the girl cousins surrounding young Nathaniel could compare with Ruth, thought the Captain, as he stood somewhat away from the chattering folk

and watched the fair curls moving from tested. So it was that, while fiddle-backed group to group.

The smell of roasted turkey and duck, of chicken pie and hot vegetables, began to reach the guests, together with a distinctly different odor, at the same time delicious and tantalizing. Cousin Olivia Starbuck, but lately returned from Boston city, sniffed delicately, whispered to the cousin next her, who in turn passed the whisper along, and before host and hostess led the way to the well-set kitchen table every woman in the room knew that the day's feast was to be crowned with the expensive new Chinese herb. Dame Content, serenely unconscious that the aroma of her surprise had betrayed it, proposed, when the meats were carried from the table and the cakes, puddings, and pies brought on, that all should pledge the occasion in a dish of tea; and Sukey, smiling, important, bore in a tray of small silver porringers, steaming fragrantly.

"We drink to Thanksgiving in the first tea ever brewed upon Nantucket Island," said young Nathaniel, lifting the handsomely chased porringer to his lips, only to remove it with a grimace. "Zounds, mother! This is no tea; this is poison bitter as death."

Consternation stared at him from eighteen pairs of eyes, only the Captain retaining composure. In the background Sukey's ebon countenance turned gray with terror, for had she not liberally tasted this strange decoction? Seeing what dismay his remark had wrought, Nathaniel laughed immoderately, and the Captain's drooping mustaches curled with a smile. But when frightened Dame Content would have risen to find an antidote for this poison she had cooked, he said with easy deference:

"Dearest madam, your son means not that a fatal draught has been set before us, but only that the herb was not drawn in the Chinese way. However, if you permit, we may drink to this Thanksgiving in nectar fit for King George, as I have learnt the art of preparing it, and this evening will brew for each one a dish of tea, asking naught save that Mistress Ruth be my cup-bearer."

Soothed by his courtesy, Dame Content's mortified face resumed its placid curves, and she gave gracious acceptance of the h the others clamored should be

chairs yielded places of honor to those in the parlor, where charming Cousin Olivia strummed upon the spinet and young Nathaniel, trolling a sea ditty, bent over her to tell whether coquetry or candlegleam danced most in her eyes, Ruth and the Captain again sat together upon the kitchen settle with no light but of the open fire, which made his dark face show to advantage above the snowy ruffled shirt and flowered red satin waistcoat, and turned to spun gold every hair of her little head.

The Captain felt at ease away from the other young people, whose unflagging gayety served to flout his bashfulness, and when he had filled the teakettle and hung it upon the crane he fell to talking of the land where teas grew; then his words wandered to other lands, and others still, for what mattered the land he storied about so Ruth, with eyes shining upon him, fringed gentian-like through long lashes, sat in charmed silence-another Desdemona listening to another Othello? But of a sudden the coral necklace fell from Ruth's throat at the Captain's feet. He picked it up, and in his look was that before which the gentians hid themselves between their fringes.

"If the clasp is unbroken, it can be worn the rest of the evening," he said. "Nay 'tis only loosed. May I not?"

Could he help it that his awkward fingers touched her white neck? Yet at the touch the poise of unstirred girlhood waked to consciousness which made Ruth a woman. She was standing at the opposite side of the hearth ere the Captain could curse himself for a clumsy fellow.

"Brew the tea now," she commanded, bewitchingly. "You said when the kettle boiled it would be time."

Never was lovelier Hebe than she who, starry-eyed, wild rose-cheeked, carried the tray of steaming silver porringers from guest to guest; and each drank to Thanksgiving Day, and young Nathaniel slyly drank also to Cousin Olivia, and all praised the Captain's skill in brewing. Yet the Captain stood aloof outside the doorway, like one ill pleased at his own success-seeing which, her brother called Ruth from chat with an eager beardless cousin twice removed.

"Little sister, where is the Captain's

tea? A poor cup-bearer, you, thus to requite his kindness to us!"

Ruth met with a sweeping curtsy the complaining of the Captain's eyes, which she knew had followed her every move.

"Magician of the tea-leaves, shall I pour for you, also, a dish of tea ?"

Was it chance that a few moments later brought husband and wife together in the dim hall, where the door opened to the kitchen? Ruth, with firelight red upon her face, was offering the Captain a little silver porringer-then, having one in hand, took seat upon the settle. Captain put himself beside her.

The

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"And did you never have your fortune of days unwed. told, Mistress Ruth?"

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"Art so ready, then, Content, to let thy one daughter go?"

"Was my mother ready to let her one daughter go?"

"But I would so shelter her-my own dear little maid! How can she leave me for this stranger?"

Never did Dame Content's face so

"My dish holds no dregs, Sir Captain. sweetly bear out its name as now, when See !"

She tipped the porringer, which showed empty. Perhaps the recollection of the beardless cousin twice removed gave the Captain courage to follow up his advantage.

"But my dish holds dregs enough for two! Listen to my fortune, then, since you will have none of your own. In these tea dregs I see a sweet maid wearing a coral necklace-and she has eyes like yours. I see myself returning from another. voyage to take this maid to wife. Mistress Ruth, do you dislike me so much that my fortune can never come true? Mistress Ruth?"

"Nay." In her confusion she faltered the Quaker speech oft heard at home and never had the Captain dreamed words could sound so sweet. "Nay, thou knowest I do not dislike thee."

Her porringer slid to the floor, and she stooped for it. He stooped also and the eyes of man and of maid looked into each other. From the parlor came sudden spinet strum and laughter which covered Nathaniel Starbuck's angry whisper:

"What was son Nathaniel thinking on to fetch yon fellow here? The prating knave! He shall answer to me for stealing thus upon a maid whose father's salt he is eating."

her husband turned to her in the dim hall; and so he thought, although he understood not that he so thought.

"Thou knowest why I left my father for thee, Nathaniel."

The strum of the spinet rose louder, and above it young Nathaniel's rich tenor lifted in rare Ben Jonson's inimitable lines:

"Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge with mine." "Such frolic and folly! I would I had bred myself a Quaker after my good father, and my children had patterned their songs in drab like their clothes! father sang only psalms, while yonder boy is mouthing as a hired singer might upon the stage."

My

He paused, for in the music lull he heard Ruth speaking.

"See it from the window here, where Aunt Esther ever sits when she spins. She had a sailor, also, sir, but he was lost at sea! How beautiful it is with the moonlight on it now! But, ah! if your ship should not come back, I never could look at the ocean again. Poor Aunt Esther! Once she and father were young together like Nathaniel and me."

The fire had burned low, and the large kitchen was softly dusky. Ruth's face

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