ing eyes." As she spoke she took his coat from the kettle
and held it up for inspection. "By my faith, that is as red
as the most ardent Tory could desire," said Clell, "and per
haps it may be of service to me."
It was eight o'clock by this time, and till they had dried
the coat, smoothed and stretched it, and got it all ready to
wear, time had crept around to the ''wee sma' hours." But
at last all was ready, and Clell, donning his brilliant coat,
thanked Effie for her kind assistance, and started off on his
previous ride, while Eifie left alone, retired to rest and
dreamed, not of Gage's red-coated officers, but of her hand
some enemy whom she had helped to elude her friends.
Meanwhile Clell found that he could well be thankful
that fate had compelled him to put on the British color, for
just before he arrived at Boston lie was confronted by two
British soldiers who would have challenged him, but notic
ing his coat, one said to the other, "He's all right. He has
the right color; let him pass."
And so the money reached the proper hands, and the
cause of the Colonies, then just struggling into existence,
was greatly strengthened, all through a pot of scarlet dye
rightly used by a Tory girl. Somehow, from that time on,
Effie lost interest in the British gallants. That she grew
correspondingly prejudiced in favor of the colonials is attest
ed to by the fact that several years later Clell Rogers and
Effie Van Allen were married. They lived to a good old age,.
and one of the chief delights of their children was to hear
how their mother once dyed that their father might live.