Since coming to London, he’d grown in confidence, and also in height. For he was already an inch and a half taller than when he arrived, and the fine new coat his father had bought him was in full retreat up his arms.

“I believe you’ll be taller than I am,” his father laughed.

It was not surprising that James had fallen in love with London. It was, indisputably, the capital of the English-speaking world. The city was so full of activity that, as the great Doctor Johnson was to say: “A man who is tired of London is tired of life.” In his tutor, James had gained a guide; in young Grey Albion, an admiring younger brother. The English fellows of his age accepted him as one of themselves. What more could a boy of rising fifteen want?

One thing. He wanted to go to Oxford. He was still too young. But under the clever handling of his tutor, he was making huge strides in his studies. “There’s no reason why he shouldn’t be ready to go to Oxford in a few years,” his tutor told his father. And truth to tell, John Master had been delighted by the idea. “You’d be doing far better than I did,” he confessed very frankly to James. Indeed, when he remembered the humiliation he’d felt at the hands of his Boston cousins, he couldn’t restrain a smile. Harvard and Yale were fine places; but to have a son who’d been to Oxford—that would be one in the eye for the Masters of Boston!

There was also another consideration. He knew the men in the provincial Assembly, and the New Yorkers close to the governor; and a surprising number of these fellows had been educated in England. An Oxford degree might be a useful asset for the family in the future.

Master talked to Albion about it, and the London man agreed.

“If James goes to Oxford,” Albion told him, “he should live with us in London during the vacations. We already think of him as one of the family.”

There was only one problem.

It was New Year’s Day when Mercy gave John the unexpected news.

“John, I’m with child.”

After so many years it had come as quite a surprise, but it seemed there was no doubt. And with the news had come one other request.

“John, I want to return to New York. I want my child born in my home, not in England.”

He waited a day before he brought up the subject of James and Oxford. He was prepared for her not to like the idea, but not for her dismay.

“Let him go to Harvard, John, but do not leave him here. I beg you.” And even after he had pointed out the advantages of the thing, she had only become more distressed. “I could not bear to lose my son to this accursed place.”