So I took
lodging with her at her house in Brattles Street, and she made me very
comfortable. She had a daughter, a pretty frolic lass of nine, who
promoted me uncle the first day, and one negro slave, who was the autocrat
of the establishment till my coming put his nose out of joint, as we say
in Staffordshire.
Master Kilroot unshipped most of his inward cargo and sailed away for
Carolina and Virginia to get rice and tobacco. Then he would come back
here to make up his return cargo with dried fish, to be exchanged at
Lisbon for wine for England. This was his ordinary round of trade, and a
very profitable traffic it was.
When he had left, I settled down to make my exile profitable. By a great
slice of luck there was at this time in Boston an Italian, one Signor
Zandra, who gave lessons in his native tongue openly and in the art of
dancing secretly. The wealth of the town was growing apace; there was a
leisured class, and, speaking generally, the Bostonians were alert of mind
and desirous of knowledge above any other set of men I have ever lived
among. In the near-by town of Cambridge there was a vigorous little
university with more than a hundred students.
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