without picking it up!—that she saw Mistress Ball stop David, who had come for her, and turn upon her pillion seat to beckon.
"Wilt see what Esther doth desire?" asked Mistress Williams. "Here, I will take little Nathaniel an ye will run down to her, Sally!"
When the girl, upon swift young feet, had reached the road and Mistress Ball's side, that lady looked down at her as though she had reached a sudden decision.
"Sally," she said in a low tone, "despite what ye ha' told me this afternoon, I believe Mistress Williams to be patriot. I ha' been troubled o'er the matter—I do own it—and I thought I would not gi' the message to her which Mistress Keturah Harrison did ask me to deliver. But now," she straightened herself determinedly, "I do believe her to be patriot. So will ye tell her that the women meet to-morrow at Mistress Harrison's to make bullets i' her cornfield?"
"Aye." Sally nodded her head. "An ye believe it to be safe! Yet"
Mistress Ball looked at her with sudden sternness. "Is it not enow that I say I ha' decided, Sally?" Then her frown melted at the quick flush on the girl's cheeks. "Nay, ye be yet too young to judge what be best! Leave that to older heads. And now, good-bye, my dear—all right, David—I will not see ye to-morrow, for I may depart at
