"All good Americans," said Fitzhugh, "are at home letting off fire-crackers."
"Still," said his mother, "I think I'd get up if I were you. It's lovely out. Not hot."
"I won't get up," said Fitzhugh, "because it's the Fourth, because I'm an American, and because I have nothing but English clothes to put on."
His mother, who was the best sort in the world, though obstinate about bringing-up, and much the prettiest woman, sat down on the bed and laughed till the tears came to her eyes. Fitzhugh laughed, too. His mind being made up, it was pleasanter to laugh than to sulk.
"But," said his mother, "what's the difference? Your pajamas are English, too."
Fitzhugh's beautiful brown eyes sparkled with mischief.
"What!" exclaimed his mother. "You wretched boy, do you mean to tell me that you haven't your pajamas on?"
Fitzhugh giggled, having worsted his mother in argument, and pushed down the bedclothes a few inches, disclosing the neck and shoulders of that satiny American suit in which he had been born.
"My dear," she exclaimed, "if you feel so strongly about it I will send your man out at once to buy you some French things. They were our allies, you know."
"Thank you, mamma," said Fitz, "and if you'll give me the pad and pencil on the table I'll write to granny."
Thus compromise was met with compromise, as is right. Fitz wrote a very short letter to granny, and drew a very long picture of crossing the Delaware, with Nathan Hale being hanged from a gallows on the bank; and Mrs. Williams sent Benton for clothes, and wrote out a cable to her husband, a daily cable being the one thing that he who loved others to have a good time was wont to exact "Dear Jim," ran the cable, at I forget what the rates were then per word, "I wish you were here. It's bright and beautiful; not too hot. Fitz would not get up and put on English clothes, being too patriotic. You will run over soon if you can, won't you, if only for a minute," etc., etc.
I know one thing of which the reader has not as yet got an inkling, The Williamses were rich. They were rich, passing knowledge, passing belief. Sums of which you and I dream in moments of supreme excitement would not have paid one of Mrs. Williams's cable bills; would not have supported Granny Williams's hot-houses and Angora cat farm through a late spring frost. James Williams and his father before him were as magnets where money was concerned. And it is a fact of family history that once James, returning from a walk in the mud, found a dime sticking to the heel of his right boot.