To this I said nothing beyond making a respectful
inclination of the head.
For the next month, Clawbonny was a scene of uninterrupted merriment
and delight. We had few families to visit in our immediate
neighbourhood, it is true; and Mr. Hardinge proposed an excursion to
the Springs--the country was then too new, and the roads too bad, to
think of Niagara--but to this I would not listen. I cared not for the
Springs--knew little of, and cared less for fashion--and loved
Clawbonny to its stocks and stones. We remained at home, then, living
principally for each other. Rupert read a good deal to the girls,
under the direction of his father; while I passed no small portion of
my time in athletic exercises. The Grace & Lucy made one or two
tolerably long cruises in the river, and at length I conceived the
idea of taking the party down to town in the Wallingford. Neither of
the girls had ever seen New York, or much of the Hudson; nor had
either ever seen a ship. The sloops that passed up and down the
Hudson, with an occasional schooner, were the extent of their
acquaintance with vessels; and I began to feel it to be matter of
reproach that those in whom I took so deep an interest, should be so
ignorant. As for the girls themselves, they both admitted, now I was a
sailor, that their desire to see a regular, three-masted, full-rigged
ship, was increased seven-fold.
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