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reported by letter, penned by Carolina's older sister Virginia to Level Green, and caused Letitia Lightfoot -on the birth of Carolina's second child-to take ship for England alone, Fielding having no desire to accompany her despite her pleading.

She would travel via Philadelphia, visit briefly with old friends, then on to England to spend the summer there visiting her daughters and her grandchildren. That summer found Sandy Randolph gone from Tower Oaks. His leaving preceded Letitia's by all of two weeks-indeed he left rather ostentatiously from Yorktown on a ship bound for New York. But there were those who whispered that Sandy's ship made an unscheduled stop at Philadelphia, that he met Letitia there and that they voyaged to England together across the windswept seas.

However that was, nobody was ever able to prove anything, and no word reached Fielding Lightfoot, engrossed in improving his handsome plantation.

That summer when her mother visited Essex was a summer when Carolina sent word to all that she was "indisposed" and never entertained. But there were reports of a handsome pair seen galloping through her stone gateposts to ride the leafy Essex lanes--a woman with flashing dark blue eyes and a man whose hair was as white-gold as Carolina's own. Both of them voyaged back to Virginia-again by way of Philadelphia-and arrived in Yorktown on separate ships, so no one was ever the wiser. But Aunt Pet thought that Sandy Randolph's handsome face had lost a little of its melancholy after that long sojourn away from the James, and that Letitia returned looking very satisfied. Indeed there was a hint of springtime laughter in her voice that brought a glint to Fielding Lightfoot's eyes when she greeted him at Yorktown after a voyage over wintry seas.

"Two of our daughters have found safe harbor, Field," she told him contentedly, brushing snowflakes from his handsome bronze greatcoat after he had swept her up in a bear hug. "And you, Letty," he said with a wry look at her wind-whipped, fur-lined violet velvet cloak and matching fur-trimmed hat, "have found as usual all the latest fashions. " Letitia laughed, that light confident reckless laugh that he had found so bewitching in the days of his courtship. "I'm laden with them, Field!" She nodded gaily at the big trunks straining men were carrying after her through the lightly falling snow.

"Then we're for home, Letty!" Fielding nodded toward his waiting river barge. Anyone watching them that gray winter day (and many sharp eyes in Yorktown were doing just that) would have testified that Letitia's homecoming was-amazingly-a triumph.

Publicly and often, Letitia, looking her imperious best in her new London gowns so hastily bought, stated that her daughters Virginia and Carolina were both well and happy. Of her eldest daughter Penny, reported to be unrepentantly roaming the Continent with her married lover, the notorious Marquess of Saltenham, Letitia forbore to speak-and even the brashest of Williamsburg gossips were too intimidated by those challenging blue eyes to question Letty Lightfoot about the young "hussy"

she had bred! But when news reached Williamsburg that, amid a wild scandal, the Marquess of Saltenham had divorced his wife and married his mistress-in London no less!-there was more excitement at Aunt Pet's brick house on Duke of Gloucester Street than either of Letitia Lightfoot's younger daughters could remember. "Penny got him-at last!" marveled Della, her eyes round with envy ,for both young girls knew the story by now of how Penny had led a wild life in the Bahamas and then hadcapped that by living in sin with a married marquess in London-and practically everywhere else!

"Of course! I always knew Penny would win out anywhere!" declared Flo, who was growing up to be almost as beautiful as her older sisters. "And I certainly don't believe that wild tale that Penny actually won enough money gambling at whist with the King of Naples so that the marquess could payoff his debts and cast off his rich wife!" she added with spirit. And then more cautiously, "Do you?"

"Oh, no, of course not!" was Della's hasty rejoinder. "Although ..."-she dimpled-"I do remember that Penny could always beat everyone we knew at cards! Do you really think it happened, Flo? I'm not even sure there is a King of Naples, are you?"

The blue eyes across from her sparkled. "Well, if there is one, I'm sure Penny found him."

"And left him the lighter in the region of his purse!" crowed Della, tossing a big pink cabbage rose into the air and catching it expertly.

Among a shower of flying rose petals both girls regarded each other with glee, for Penny's wild adventures had been a source of great delight to them, trapped as they felt they were in the more demure world of the Tidewater.

"And you know what this means?" demanded Flo, her voice quickening. "It means we'll not only be visiting London and Essex, we'll be visiting Hampshire too, for isn't Hampshire where the Marquess of Saltenham has his seat?"

Della nodded dreamily and set her teeth into one of the drifting rose petals. "And we'll be invited everywhere since we'll be related to viscounts and marquesses, so you and I should both end up with dukes!"

"Oh, at the very least." Flo shrugged, shaking out her long hair, which she had just washed, to dry it in the sun. "And we'll both live in great castles and command large staffs and-" he giggled-''we'll tell absolutely everyone awful lies about life in the Colonies and how we all run around exclusively in moccasins't-e-she glanced down merrily at her smart red heels-"and they'll believe every word!"

Both girls collapsed with laughter. They were sitting on the grass in Aunt Pet's side garden, shielded from passersby on the street by a white paling fence and some boxwood that managed almost to shut out the view. Their light skirts lifted with the breeze to display their pretty knees, but neither of them seemed to notice or care.

After gloomy mutterings about financial ruin, their father had one day become-mysteriously it seemed to them-wealthy again. It had happened very suddenly after a certain sea captain had visited Level Green, bringing with him a pair of cheap pattens, a gift from Carolina. Almost immediately their father had paid off all his debts, their mother had gone about smiling fondly-even upon her enemies-and they had all begun to spend money as blithely as if there were no tomorrow.

Now their mother, a year after her summer spent in England, spoke with open affection of Carolina, and Fielding, hearing her, no longer seemed to mind. His only glowering was reserved for Sandy Randolph, whenever that gentleman rode up with aplomb, elegantly attired, to pay a cousinly calion the Lightfoots of Level Green.

"It's too bad," sighed Flo humorously. "I had really hoped to elope to the Marriage Trees just to uphold the family tradition, hadn't you? But now that our older sisters have married into the nobility, we may have to give that up!"

Della again collapsed with mirth, rolling on the grass. "We'll just have to be content with dukes!" she gasped when she could speak again.

From inside Aunt Pet's checkerboard brick house, Letitia Lightfoot peered out in disapproval at her hoydenish daughters.

"They are too much like Penny and Carolina," she sighed. "I don't know what will become of them, Petula!"

"Say rather that they are too much like you, Letty!" was Aunt Pet's tart rejoinder. "For we both know where your daughters get their wildness!"

Letitia did not demur.

They were both rather like her, those wild ones, she mused with secret pride: Penny and Carolina-oh, especially CarolinaI And being like her must have been rather a cross to bear! But they had both won through -indeed they had more than won through, they had triumphed!

And so I end my saga of a love that would not die

But fought its way across the seas 'neath many a

stormy sky,

And in a toast to Christabel and her wild love,

I quench

My dust-dry throat that yearns to tell

More Tales of the Silver Wench!