Theo turned back to the dressing-table. 'Will you ring, Natalie? I need Dinah for my hair.'

The other girl's hand rose to the embroidered bell-pull, but fell back before touching it. 'I'll do your hair for you, petite. Dinah is busy in the kitchen with the others. Là, là! Such a to-do down there getting ready for your banquet this evening.'

'I suppose Father has breakfasted already?'

Natalie, pulling and patting the chestnut tendrils, laughed. 'Long ago. He could scarcely wait for Selim to be saddled, then he was off to the city like a whirlwind. To Brom Martling's Tavern, I suppose, as usual.'

'Oh, yes—those Tammany men,' said Theo vaguely. 'He has much business with them ... Tell me, if I piled my hair higher just here, should I look older and taller, do you think?'

They discussed this point animatedly until Theo, opening her great lavender-scented clothes-press, reached for her riding-habit.

Natalie frowned. 'You are riding again this morning, in the heat?'

'The heat doesn't matter. A gallop on Minerva will cool me off. Besides——' She paused, one eyebrow shot up in unconscious imitation of her father when he was bent on devilry, her eyes widened with mischief. 'You are so anxious to have me feel romantic—well, here is something for you'. She lowered her voice to a dramatic whisper: 'I am going to meet a young man, very handsome, in the woods across the island!'

'Theo!' Natalie stared; then, with a laugh, 'You are impossible. What young man? Who introduced you? Tell me at once.'

Theo gave a little trill of mirth, a spontaneous and infectious gurgle peculiar to her. Before she answered, she adjusted the wide skirts of her gray silk habit and pulled her plumed felt hat to its most dashing angle.

'No one introduced us,' she said airily. 'We just met. And I'm not sure who he is, but I think he's that Doctor Peter Irving's young brother, Washington. You see, we don't know each other well enough yet to exchange names.'

With which piece of effrontery she made the thunderstruck Natalie a low curtsy, shutting her ears to the shattering explosion of outraged French which pursued her down the stairs.

She slipped out at a side door, noticing even in her haste the dear beauties of this place that she loved: the splendid oaks and cedars that shaded the house, the soft green lawns with their gentle slopes, even the silly sheep that cropped the grass. There was a pond, too, gracefully marged with ornamental shrubs, and teeming with swans and yellow-billed ducks. Aaron had recently enlarged it to a more respectable size, in keeping with one of the most impressive estates on Manhattan Island. But no amount of enlarging could give it much significance. It was forever dwarfed by the effortless magnificence of the river beyond it.