CHAPTER XI. A FESTIVAL AND A PARTING 

My grandfather and I were seated at table together. It was early June, the birds were singing in the garden, and the sweet odours of the flowers were wafted into the room. 

"Richard," says he, when Scipio had poured his claret, "my illness cheated you out of your festival last year. I dare swear you deem yourself too old for birthdays now." 

I laughed. 

"So it is with lads," said Mr. Carvel; "they will rush into manhood as heedless as you please. Take my counsel, boy, and remain young. Do not cross the bridge before you have to. And I have been thinking that we shall have your fete this year, albeit you are grown, and Miss Dolly is the belle of the province. 'Tis like sunshine into my old heart to see the lads and lasses again, and to hear the merry, merry fiddling. I will have his new Excellency, who seems a good and a kindly man, and Lloyd and Tilghman and Dulany and the rest, with their ladies, to sit with me. And there will be plenty of punch and syllabub and sangaree, I warrant; and tarts and jellies and custards, too, for the misses. Ring for Mrs. Willis, my son." 

Willis came with her curtsey to the old gentleman, who gave his order then and there. He never waited for a fancy of this kind to grow cold. 

"We shall all be children again, on that day, Mrs. Willis," says he. "And I catch any old people about, they shall be thrust straight in the town stocks, i' faith." 
What brightened one of their hearts?
to see the lads and lasses again