This sadness continued to oppress her during the hurried farewells while the captain bellowed orders, sailors swarmed up the masts unfurling the courses, hawsers creaked straining to be loose; and Theodosia, leaning against the taffrail, waved to Joseph's diminishing figure as the brig slipped away from the wharf, until he merged into the blur of pink and yellow houses behind.

On the seven-day journey up the coast Theo thought about Joseph a great deal oftener than she had ever done before. It was easier to see him in a romantic light when at a distance from him, yet it was more than that. At this period her love for the baby extended itself to the father. It was, after all, the same sort of love, deepened by a year and a half of companionship, and sharpened when she reached Richmond Hill by Aaron's absence. For after he had established her in New York, his affairs took him to Washington and Philadelphia. She was much alone, her activities restricted by the demands of her son's hungry little mouth.

So she wrote to Joseph, tender, affectionate letters, partly the product of her own feelings and partly from a desire to reassure him and make him content. 'You do not know how constantly my whole mind is employed in thinking of you. Do you, my husband, think as frequently of your Theo and wish for her? Do you really feel a vacuum in your pleasures?' And later she wrote: 'How docs your election advance? I am anxious to know something of it. But not from patriotism, however. It little concerns me which party succeeds. Where you are there is my country and in you are centered all my wishes.'

Joseph, when he received this, was gladdened, and yet in another letter she had not been able to refrain from enthusiastic praise of her own home place. 'Never did I behold this island so beautiful. With the beauty of the country it is impossible not to be delighted whether that delight is expressed or not, and every woman cannot fail to prefer the style of society.'

Will she never learn to appreciate the Carolinas too? thought Joseph, and his heart was sore.

On Monday, July fifth, the whole country burst forth into riotous celebration of Independence Day, because the Sunday had naturally precluded festivity. Richmond Hill and all the other estates were thrown wide open, guests streaming through the house drinking joyfully of brandy punch in the dining-room or Madeira in the library. Outside on the lawns there was a din of gunpowder explosions, and later fireworks. Parades marched by on the Greenwich Road, and the air continually jigged with the strains of 'Yankee Doodle.'

In the midst of the hubbub, Theo heard her baby's plaintive wail and, excusing herself, she disappeared upstairs to perform her pleasurable duty.

She looked up astonished as Aaron, after a hasty knock, walked in.