At Greenwood she found her mother still suffering from the

fright and the blow too much to allow the girl to tell her own

troubles, or to ask counsel for the future, and the occupation of

trying to make the sufferer more comfortable was in fact a

good diversion, exhausted though she was with her fruitless

journey.

Before Mrs. Meredith was entirely recovered, or any news of

the squire had reached the household, fresh trouble was upon

them. Captain Bagby and two other men drove up the third

morning after the incursion, and, without going through the.

form of knocking, came into the parlour.

"You'll get ready straight off to go to Philadelphia," the

officer announced.

"For what?" demanded Mrs. Meredith.

"The Congress's orders is that any one guilty of seeking to

communicate with the enemy is to be put under arrest, and

sent to Philadelphia to be examined."

"But we have n't made the slightest attempt, nor so much

as thought of it," protested the matron.

"Oh, no!" sneered Joe; "but, all the same, we intercepted

a letter last night written to you by your old Tory husband,

and--"

"Oh, prithee," broke in Janice, without a thought of anything

but her father, "was he well, and where is he?"

"He was smarting a bit when he wrote," Bagby remarked

with evident enjoyment, "but he's got safe to his friends on

Staten Island, so we are n't going to let you stay where you can

be sneaking news to the British through him. I'll give you

just half an hour to pack, and if you are n't done then, off you

goes."

Protests and pleadings were wholly useless, though Joe

yielded so far as to suggestively remark in an aside to the girl,

that "there was one way that you know of, for fixing this

thing." Getting together what they could in the brief time

accorded to them, and with vague directions to Peg and Sukey

as to the care of all they were forced to leave behind, the two

women took their places in the waggon, and with only one man

to drive them, set out for their enforced destination.

How little of public welfare and how much of private spite

there was in their arrest was proven upon their arrival the following

day in the city of brotherly love. The escort, or captor,

first took them to the headquarters of the general in command

of the Continental forces of the town, only to find that

he was inspecting the forts down the Delaware. Leaving the

papers, he took his charges to the Indian King Tavern, and

after telling them that they 'd hear from the general "like as

not to-morrow," he departed on his return to Brunswick.

Whether the papers were mislaid by the orderly to whom

they had been delivered, or were examined and deemed too

trivial for attention, or, as is most probable, were prevented

consideration by greater events, no word came from headquarters

the next day, or for many following ones. Nor could the

initiative come from the captives, for Mrs. Meredith sickened

the second day after their arrival, and developed a high fever

on the third, which the physician who was called in declared

to be what was then termed putrid fever,--a disease to which

some three hundred of the English and Hessian soldiery at

Brunswick had fallen victims during the winter. Under his

advice, and without hindrance from the innkeeper, who took

good care to forget that he was to "keep tight hold on the

prisoners till the general sends for 'em," she was removed to

quieter lodgings on Chestnut Street.

The nursing, the anxiety, and the isolation all served to

make public events of no moment to Janice, though from the

doctor or her loquacious landlady she heard of how Burgoyne's

force, advancing from Canada, had captured Ticonderoga,

and of how Sir William had put the flower of his army on

board of transports and gone to sea, his destination thus

becoming a sort of national conundrum affording infinite

opportunity for the wiseacres of the taverns.

Mrs. Meredith, for the sake of the quiet, had been put in

the back room, the daughter taking that on the street, and

this arrangement, as it proved, was a fortunate one. Late

in August, after a hard all-night's tendance of her mother,

Janice was relieved, once the sun was up, by the daughter of

the lodging-house keeper, and wearily sought her chamber,

with nothing but sleep in her thoughts, if thoughts she had

at all, for, too exhausted to undress, she threw herself upon

the bed. Scarcely was her head resting on the pillow when

there came from down the street the riffle of drums and the

squeaks of fifes, and half in fright, and half in curiosity, the

girl sprang up and pushed open her blinds.

Toward the river she could see what looked like an

approaching mob, but behind them could be distinguished

horsemen. As she stood, the rabble ran, or pattered, or,

keeping step to the music, marched by, followed by a drum-and-fife

corps. After them came the horsemen, and the

girl's tired eyes suddenly sparkled and her pale face glowed,

as she recognised, pre-eminent among them, the tall, soldierly

figure of Washington, sitting Blueskin with such ease, grace,

and dignity. He was talking to an odd, foreign-looking

officer of extremely youthful appearance--whom, if Janice

had been better in touch with the gossip of the day, she would

have known to be the Marquis de Lafayette, just appointed

by Congress a major-general; and while the commander-in-chief

bowed and removed his hat in response to the cheers

of the people, this absorption prevented him from seeing the

girl, though she leaned far out of the window in the hope

that he would do so. To the lonely, worried maid it seemed

as if one glance of the kindly blue eyes, and one sympathetic

grasp of the large, firm hand, would have cut her troubles in half.

After the group of officers came the rank and file,--lines

of men no two of whom were dressed alike, many of them

without coats, and some without shoes; old uniforms faded

or soiled to a scarcely recognisable point, civilian clothing

of all types, but with the hunting-shirt of linen or leather

as the predominant garb; and equipped with every kind

of gun, from the old Queen Anne musket which had seen

service in Marlborough's day to the pea rifle of the frontiers-man.

A faint attempt to give an appearance of uniformity

had been made by each man sticking a sprig of green leaves

in his hat, yet had it not been for the guns, cartouch boxes,

powder horns, and an occasional bayonet and canteen, only

the regimental order, none too well maintained, differentiated

the army from the mob which had preceded them.

While yet the girl gazed wistfully after the familiar figure,

her ears were greeted with a still more familiar voice.

"Close up there and dress your lines, Captain Balch. If

this is your 'Column in parade,' what, in Heaven's name, is

your 'March at ease'?" shouted Brereton, cantering along

the column from the rear.

He caught sight of Janice as he rode up, and an exclamation

of mingled surprise and pleasure burst from him. Throwing

his bridle over a post, he sprang up the three steps, lustily

hammered with the knocker, and in another moment was in

the girl's presence.

"This is luck beyond belief," he exclaimed, as he seized

her hand. "Your father wrote me from New York, begging

that I see or send you word that he was well, and asking that you

be permitted to join him. At Brunswick I learned you were

here, but, seek you as I might, I could not get wind of your

whereabout. And now I cannot bide to aid you, for we are

in full march to meet the British."

"Where?"

"They have landed at the head of the Chesapeake, so we

are hastening to get between them and Philadelphia, and only

diverged from our route to parade through the streets this

morning, that the people might have a chance to see us, so

't is given out, but in fact to overawe them; for the city is

none too loyal to us, as will be shown in a few days, when

they hear of our defeat."

"You mean?" questioned the girl.

"General Washington, generous as he always is, has sent

some of his best regiments to Gates, and so we are marching

eleven thousand ill-armed and worse officered men, mostly

new levies, to face on open ground nineteen thousand picked

troops. What can come but defeat in the field? If it

depended on us, the cause would be as good as ended, but

they are beaten, thanks to their dirty politics, before they

even face us."

"I don't understand."

"'T is simple enough when one knows the undercurrents.

Germaine was against appointing the Howes, and has always

hated them. So he schemes this silly side movement of

Burgoyne's from Canada, and plans that the army at New

York shall be but an assistant to that enterprise, with no share

in its glory. Sir William, however, sloth though he be, saw

through it, and, declining to be made a cat's-paw, he gets

aboard ship, to seek laurels for himself, leaving Burgoyne to

march and fight through his wilderness alone. Mark me, the

British may capture Philadelphia, but if we can but keep them

busy till it is too late to succour Burgoyne, the winter will see

them the losers and not the gainers by the campaign. But

there," he added, "I forget that all this can have but small

interest to you."

"Oh," cried Janice, "you would n't say that if you knew

how good it is just to hear a friend's voice." And then she

poured out the tale of her mother's illness and of her own

ordeal.

"Would that I could tarry here and serve and save you!"

groaned Brereton, when she had ended; "but perhaps luck

will attend us, and I may be able to hurry back. Have you

money in plenty?"

The girl faltered, for in truth there had been little cash at

Greenwood when they were called upon to come away, and

much of that little was already parted with for lodgings and

medicines. Yet she managed to nod her head.

Her pretence did not deceive Jack, and in an instant his

purse was being forced into her unwilling fingers. "The

fall in our paper money gives a leftenant-colonel a lean scrip

in these days, but what little I have is yours," he said.

"I can't take it," protested Janice, trying to return the

wallet.

Brereton was at the door ere her hand was outstretched.

"Thy father's letters to me are in the purse, so thou must

keep it," he urged. "It's a toss whether I ever need

money again, but if I weather this campaign, we'll consider it

but a loan, and if I don't, 't is the use of all others to which

I should wish it put." This he said seriously, and then more

lightly went on: "And besides, Miss Janice, I owe you far more

than I can ever pay. We Whigs may forcibly impress, but at

least we tender what we can in payment. Keep it, then, as a

beggar's poor thanks for the two happiest moments of his life."

The aide passed through the doorway, and the next moment

a horse's feet clattered in the street.

Janice stood listening till the sound had died out of hearing,

then, overcome by this first kindness after such long weeks

of harshness and trial, she kissed the purse. And if Brereton

could have seen the flush of emotion that swept over her face

with the impulsive act, it is likely that something else would

have been kissed as well.

XXXIX

SHORT COMMONS

The moment's cheer that the brief dialogue with

Brereton brought Janice was added to by the

reading of the two letters from her father to

him, which reaffirmed and amplified the little the

aide had told her, and ended that source of misery. And,

as if his advent in fact marked the turn of the tide, the doctor

announced the next day that Mrs. Meredith's typhoid had

passed its crisis, and only good nursing was now needed to

insure a safe recovery. The girl's prayers suddenly changed

from ones of supplication to ones of thanksgiving; and she

found herself breaking into song even when at her mother's

bedside, quite forgetful of the need for quiet. This she was

especially prone to do while she helped the long hours of

watching pass by knitting on a silken purse of the most complicated

pattern.

The materials for this trifle were purchased on the afternoon

following the march of the Continental army, and for some

days the progress was very rapid. Public events then interfered

and checked both song and purse. On September 11

the low boom of guns was heard, and that very evening word

came that the Continental army had been defeated at Brandywine.

The moment the news reached Philadelphia an exodus

of the timid began, which swelled in volume as the probability

of the capture of the city grew. The streets were filled with

waggons carting away the possessions of the people; the Continental

Congress, which had been urging Washington to fight

at all hazard, took to its heels and fled to Lancaster; and all

others who had made themselves prominent in the Whig cause

deserted the city. Among those who thought it necessary to

go was the lodging-house keeper; for, her husband being an

officer of one of the row galleys in the river, she looked for

nothing less than instant death at the hands of the British.

With a plea to Janice, therefore, that she would care for the

house and do what she could to save it from British plundering,

the woman and her daughter departed. Her example was

followed by the doctor, not from motives of fear, but from a

purpose to join Washington's army as a volunteer. This

threw upon the girl's shoulders the entire charge of her

mother, and the cooking and providing as well; the latter by

far the most difficult of all, for the farmers about Philadelphia

were as much panic-stricken as the townspeople, and for

a time suspended all attempts to bring their produce to

market.

The two weeks of this chaos were succeeded by a third of

unwonted calm, and then one morning as she opened the front

door on her way to make her daily purchases, Janice's ears

were greeted with the sound of military music. Turning up

Second Street, curiosity hastening her steps, she became part

of the crowd of women and children running toward the

market, and arrived there just in time to see Harcourt's dragoons,

followed by six battalions of grenadiers, march past to

the tune of "God Save the King." Following these came

Lord Cornwallis, and then four batteries of heavy artillery;

and the crowd cheered the conquerors as enthusiastically and

joyfully as they had Washington's ragged regiments so short a

time before.

The advent of the British did not lessen the difficulties of

Janice, as they not only promptly seized all the provisions of

the town, but their main army, camped outside the city at

Germantown, intercepted the few fresh supplies which the

farmers successfully smuggled through Washington's lines above

the city. Fresh beef rose to nine shillings the pound, bread

to six shillings the quartern loaf and everything else in like

ratio. Though Brereton's loan furnished her with the where-withal

for the moment, each day's purchases made such inroads

into it that the girl could not but worry over the future.

The stress she had foreseen came far sooner than even she

had feared, or had reason to expect. Without warning, the

tradespeople united in refusing to sell for Continental money;

and Janice, when she went to make her usual purchases one

day, found that she could buy nothing, and had but stinted

and pinched herself only to husband what in a moment had

become valueless.

At first the girl's distress was so great that she could think

of no means of relief; but after hours of miserable and tearful

worrying over her helplessness, her face suddenly brightened,

and the cause of the change was revealed by her thrusting her

hand into her neckerchief, to draw out the miniature of herself.

With her knitting needle she pried up the glass and, removing

the slip of ivory, laid it carefully in her housewife,

heaving, let it be confessed, a little sigh, for it was hard to

part with the one trinket she had ever owned. Unconscious

of how many hours she had been dwelling on her troubles, she

caught up her calash, and with the miniature frame in her

hand, hurried to the front door; but the moment she had

opened it, she was reminded that it was long after the closing

of the markets, and so postponed whatever she had in mind

for another day.

On the following morning she sallied forth, so engrossed in

her difficulties, or her project, that she paid no heed to the

distant sound of cannon, nor to the groups of townspeople who

stood about on corners or stoops, evidently discussing something

of interest; and it was only when she turned into the

market-place, and found it empty alike of buyers and sellers

that she was made to realise that something unusual was

occurring.

"Why are all the stands closed this morning?" she asked

of an urchin.

"'Cause nawthing 's come ter town along of the fightin'."

"Fighting?"

"Guess you 're a deefy," contemptuously suggested the

youngster. "Don't you hear them guns? The grenadiers

went out lickety split this mornin' and folks says they've got

Washington surrounded, an'll have him captured by night.

All the other boys hez gone out on the Germantown road ter

see the fun, but daddy said he'd lick me if I went, so I did n't

dare," he added dejectedly. "Hurrah! There come some

more wounded!" he cried, with sudden cheerfulness and breaking

into a run as an army van came in sight down Second

Street.

The girl turned away and went into one of the few shops

which had opened its shutters.

"You would not take Continental money yesterday," she

said to the proprietor; "but perhaps you--you will--I

thought--I have no other kind of money, but perhaps you

will accept this in payment?" Janice, with a flushed, anxious

face, unwrapped from her handkerchief and laid down on the

counter the miniature frame.

The man took it up and eyed it for a moment, then raised

it to his mouth and pressed his teeth on the edge; satisfied

by the experiment, he scrutinised the brilliants. "How d' ye

come by this?" he demanded suspiciously.

"Oh, indeed, sir," explained Janice, growing yet redder, "it is

mine, I assure you, given me by--that is, he said I might keep it."

"'Tain't for me to say it ain't yourn," responded the shop-keeper;

"but the times is bad times and there 's roguery of

all sorts going on in the city." He looked it over again,

and demanded, "Who does 'W. H. J. B.' mean?"

"I don't--I never knew," faltered Janice.

"Then where 's the picture that was in it?"

"I--I took it out," explained the girl, "not wishing to

part with that."

"That's just what ye would have done if ye'd not come by

it by rights, "replied the man.

"Then I'll put it back," hastily offered Janice, very much

alarmed and flustered. "I--I never dreamed that--that

the picture would make it worth any more."

"'T would have made it look more regular. How much

d' ye want for it?"

"I thought--Would five pounds be too much?"

The shop-keeper laid the frame down on the counter and

shoved it toward Janice. "No, I don't want it," he said.

"Would three pounds--?"

"I don't want it at no such price," interrupted the man.

"Oh," bewailed the girl, "what am I to do? The doctor

said she was to have nourishing food; and I have nothing but

a little corn meal left. Would you give me one pound for it?"

"I tell ye, I won't buy it at any price. And I don't even

want it in the shop, so take it away. And if you want to keep

out of jail, I would n't be offering it about; I've most a

mind to call the watch myself, as 't is."

The threat was enough to make Janice catch up the bijou

and leave the shop almost at a run; nor did her pace lessen

as she hurried homeward, and, safely there, she fast bolted the

door. This done, with hands which trembled not a little, she

replaced her portrait in the frame, hoping dimly from what

the shopkeeper had said, that this would help to prove her

ownership. Yet all that day and the succeeding one she

stayed within doors, dreading what might come; and any

unusual noise outside set her heart beating with fear that it might

portend the approach of a danger all the more terrible that

it was indefinite. As if her suffering were not great enough,

an added horror was the army vans loaded with groaning

wounded, which rumbled by her door during the sleepless

night she spent.

As time lessened her fright, her necessities grew more

pressing, and finally became so desperate, that, braving everything,

she went boldly to headquarters, and asked for Lord

Cornwallis.

She was referred by the sentry at the stoop to a room on

the ground floor, her entrance being accompanied by the man

shouting down the hallway: "Here 's wan more av thim

townsfolks, sir." Entering, Janice discovered two men seated

at a table, each with a little pile of money at his elbow, passing

the time with cards.

"Well," growled the one with his back to the door, "I

suppose 't is the usual tale: No bread, no meat, no firewood;

sick wife, sick baby, sick mother, sick anything that can be

whined about. Body o' me, must we not merely die by bullets

or starvation, but suffer a thousand deaths meantime with endless

whimpering!

"Slowly, slowly, Mobray," advised he who faced Janice.

"This is no nasal-voiced and putty-faced cowardly old Quaker.

'T is a damned pretty maid, with eyes and a waist and an ankle

fit to be a toast. Ay, and she can mantle divinely, when she's

admired!"

"Ye don't foist that take-in on me, John Andre! I score

six to my suit, and a quint is twenty-one, and a card played is

twenty-two.--Well, graycoat, say your say, and don't stand

behind me as a kill-joy."

"I wish to see Lord Cornwallis, Sir Frederick," faltered

Janice, nerved only by thought of her mother, and ready to

sink through the floor in her mortification.

At the sound of a woman's voice the officer turned his head

sharply, and with the first glance he was on his feet. "Miss

Meredith," he cried, "a thousand pardons! Who 'd have

thought to find you here? How can I serve you?"

"I wish to see Lord Cornwallis," repeated Janice.

"'T is evident you pay little heed to what has been occurring,"

replied Mobray, as he placed a chair for her. "We

thought we had all the spirit beat out of Mr. Washington's

pack o' ragamuffins; but, egad, day before yesterday, quite

contrary to all the rules of polite warfare, and in a most un-gentlemanly

manner, they set upon us as we lay encamped at

Germantown, and wellnigh gave us a drubbing. Lord Cornwallis

went to Sir William's assistance, running his grenadiers at

double quick the whole distance, and he has not yet returned."

"We deemed rebellion well under our heel when we gained

possession of its capital," chimed in Captain Andre; "but

Mr. Washington seems in truth to make a fourth with 'a dog,

a woman, and a chestnut-tree, the more they are beat the

better they be.' Our very successes are teaching his army how

to fight, and I fear me the day will come when we shall have

thrashed them into a victory."

"But all this is not helping Miss Meredith," spoke up

Mobray. "Lord Cornwallis being beyond reach, can I not

be of aid?"

In a few words the girl poured out the tale of her mother's

sickness, and then with less glibness, and with reddened

cheeks, of her moneyless and foodless condition.

Before she had well finished, the baronet swept up his pile

of money on the table and held out the handful of coins to

the girl.

"Oh, no," cried Janice, shrinking back. "I--Oh, I

thank you, but I can't take your--"

"Ah, Miss Meredith," pleaded Sir Frederick, "I was less

proud last winter when we were half starving in scurvy-plagued

and fever-stricken Brunswick."

"But food was nothing," exclaimed Janice, "and that is

all I want; just enough for my mother. I thought Lord Cornwallis

might--"

"In truth, Miss Meredith, you ask for what is far scarcer

than guineas in these days," said Andre. "The rebels hold

the forts in the lower Delaware so tenaciously that our supply

ships have not yet been able to get up to us, and as Washington's

army is between us and the back country, we are as near

in a state of siege as nineteen thousand men were ever put

by an inferior force."

"Our men are on quarter rations, and we officers fare but

little better," grumbled Mobray.

"Then what am I to do?" cried Janice, despairingly.

"Come, Fred," said Andre, "can't something be

done?"

Mobray shook his head gloomily. "I did my best yesterday

to get the wounded rebels given some soup and wine, or

at least beef and biscuit that was n't rotten or full of worms,

but 't was not to be done; there 's too much profit in buying

the worst and charging for the best."

"Damn the commissary! say I," growled Andre, "and let

his fate be to starve ever after on the stuff he palms on us

as fit to eat."

"Amen," remarked a voice outside, and Lord Clowes

stepped into the room. "I'll take hell and army rations,

Captain Andre, rather than lose the pleasure of your society,"

he added ironically.

"Small doubt I shall be found there," retorted Andre, derisively;

"but I fear me we shall be no better friends, Baron

Clowes, than we are here. There is a special furnace for

paroled prisoners!"

"Blast thy tongue, but that insult shall cost thee dear!"

returned the commissary, white with rage. "To whom shall I

send my friend, sir?"

"Hold, Andre," broke in Mobray, "let me answer, not for

you, but for the army." He faced Clowes and went on.

"When you have surrendered yourself into the hands of the

rebels, and have been properly exchanged, sir, you may be

able to find a British officer to carry a challenge on your

behalf; until then no man of honour would lower himself by

fighting you."

"I make Sir Frederick's answer mine, my Lord," said Andre,

"and I suggest, as a lady is present, that we put a finish to

our war of words, which can come to nothing."

The commissary gave a quick glance about the room, and

as he became aware of the presence of Janice, he uttered an

exclamation and started forward with outstretched hand.

"Miss Meredith!" he ejaculated. "By all that 's wonderful!"

Mobray made an impulsive movement as Clowes stooped

and kissed the girl's hand, almost as if intending to strike the

baron; but checking himself; he sarcastically remarked, with a

frowning face: "If you enjoy the favour of his Lordship, Miss

Meredith, you need not look further for help. We fellows

who fight for our country barely get enough to keep life in us,

but the commissariat knows not short commons. Mr. Commissary-General,

you have an opportunity to aid Miss Meredith

that you should not have were it in my power to forestall

you."

"Come to my office, Miss Janice," requested Clowes, perhaps

glad to get away from the presence of the young officers.

He led the way across the hallway to another room, and, after

the two were seated, would have taken the girl's hand again

had she not avoided his attempt.

In the fewest possible words Janice retold her plight, broken

only by interjections of sympathy from her listener, and by

two futile endeavours to gain possession of her hand.

"Have no fear of any want in the future," he exclaimed

heartily. "In truth, Miss Meredith, on our entrance we

seized much that was unfit for the troops, while since then the

military necessities have compelled the destruction of many of

the finest houses about Germantown, and I took good care

that what store of delicacies and wines they might hold should

not be destroyed along with them. But give me thy number,

and thy mother shall have all that she needs." Clowes caught

the maiden's hand, and though she rose with the action, and

slightly shrank away from him, this time he had his will and

kissed it hotly.

Janice gave the address and thanked him with warm words

of gratitude, somewhat neutralised by her trying to free her

hand.

Instead of yielding to her wish, the commissary only tightened

his grasp. "Ye have owed me something for long," he

said, drawing her toward him in spite of her striving. "Surely

I have earned it to-day."

"Lord Clowes, I beg--" began Janice; but there she ended

the plea, and, throwing her free arm as a shield before her

face, she screamed.

Instantly there was a sound of a falling chair, and both the

card-players burst into the room.

Quick as they were, Clowes had already dropped his hold,

and at a respectful distance was saying: "The wine and food

shall reach ye within the hour, Miss Meredith."

Janice silently curtseyed her thanks, and darted past the

young officers, alike anxious to escape explanation to them, or

further colloquy with her persecutor.

In this latter desire the girl secured but a brief postponement,

for she was not long returned when the knocker summoned

her to the front door, and on the steps stood the

commissary and two soldiers laden with a basket apiece.

"Ye see I'm true to my word, Miss Meredith," said Lord

Clowes. "Give me the whiskets, and be off with ye," he

ordered to the men; and then to the girl continued: "Where

will ye have them bestowed?"

"Oh, I'll not trouble thee," protested Janice, blocking the

entrance, "just hand them to me."

"Nay, 't is no trouble," the officer assured her, setting one

foot over the sill. "And, besides, I have word of your father

to tell ye."

Reluctantly the maiden gave him passage, and pointed out

a place of deposit in the entry for his burden. Then she fell

back to the staircase, and went up a few steps. Yet she

eagerly questioned: "What of my father?"

Clowes came to the foot of the ascent. "He is on one of

the transports in the lower Delaware, and as soon as we can

reduce the rebel works, and break through their cursed chevaux-de-frise,

he will come up to Philadelphia."

"Oh," almost carolled Janice, "what joyous news!"

"And does the bringer deserve no reward?"

"For that, and for the food, I thank you deeply, Lord

Clowes," said the girl, warmly.

"I'm not the man to take my pay in mere lip music,"

answered the commissary. "Harkee, Miss Meredith, there is

a limit to my forbearance of thy skittishness. Thou wast ready

enough to wed me once, and I have never released thee from

the bargain. Henceforth I expect a lover's privileges until

they can be made those of a husband." Clowes took two

steps, upward.

"I think, Lord Clowes, that 't is hardly kind of you to remind

me of my shame," replied Janice, with a gentle dignity

very close to tears. "Deceitful I was and disobedient, and

no one can blame me more than I have come to blame myself.

But you are not the one to speak of it nor to pretend

that my giddy conduct was any pledge."

"Then am I to understand that I was lover enough when

thy needs required it, but that now I am to be jilted?" demanded

the man, harshly.

"Your version is a cruel one that I am sure you cannot

think just."

"Ye hold to it that ye are not bound to me?"

"Yes."

The commissary fell back to where he had set the baskets.

"In your necessity ye felt otherwise, and I advise ye to remember

that ye still require my aid. I am not one of those

who lavish favours and expect no return, though a good friend

to those who make it worth my while. If I am to have naught

from ye, ye shall have naught from me." He picked up the

baskets. "Here is milk, bread, meat, jellies, and wines, to be

had for a price, and only for a price."

"Oh, prithee, Lord Clowes," begged Janice, despairingly,

"you cannot seek to advantage yourself of my desperate plight.

All I had to give my mother this morning was some water

gruel, and I have not tasted food myself for a twenty-four

hours."

"Your anxiety for your mother cannot be over great. I

only ask ye to avow that ye consented to become my wife, and

should have done so, had we been left free."

The girl wavered; then buried her face in her hands, and

in a scarcely audible voice said: "I did intend--for a brief

space--did think to--to marry you."

"And ye've never given a promise to another man?"

"Never."

Clowes set down the baskets. "That is all I wished acknowledged,"

he said. "I'll ask no more till ye have decided

whether ye will be true to the troth ye have just confessed,

Janice." He opened the front door, and added as he passed

out: "When these supplies are exhausted, ye know where

more is to be had."

XL

THE BATTLE FOR FOOD AND FORAGE

When Janice came to examine the contents of the

baskets, she was somewhat disappointed at the

mess of pottage for which she had half bartered

herself. Though every article the commissary

had enumerated was to be found, it was in meagre quantities,

and the girl was shrewd-witted enough to divine the giver's

intention,--that she should be quickly forced again to appeal

to him. Her mother's requirements and her own hunger,

however, prevented dwelling on the future, and scarcely had

these been attended to, when Mobray and Andre appeared, to

inquire if her immediate needs were supplied, and with a plan

of assistance.

"Miss Meredith," said Mobray, "Captain Andre and I have

had assigned to us for quarters the Franklin house down on

Second Street; and he and I have agreed that, if Mrs. Meredith

can be moved, you are to come and share it with us."

"We ask it as a favour, which, if granted, will make us the

envy of the army," remarked Andre. "And it will, I trust,

not be an entirely one-sided benefit. The old fox's den is

more than comfortable, Mobray and I have a couple of rankers

as servants, one of whom has more or less attached to

him a woman who cooks well enough to make even the present

ration eatable, and, lastly, though our presence may be something

of a handicap, yet in such unsettled times one must

tolerate the dogs if they but keep out the wolves. Hang and

whip as we may, the men will plunder, and some in high office

are little better. Alone here, you are scarcely safe, but with us

you need have no fear."

Janice attempted some objections, but her previous helplessness

and loneliness, as well as her recent fright from the

commissary, made them faint-hearted, and it needed little

urgence to win her consent to the plan. Her mother approving,

a surgeon and an ambulance were secured, and before

nightfall the removal was safely accomplished.

When, after the first good night's sleep she had enjoyed

since her mother sickened, the girl was summoned to breakfast,

she found that others had been more wakeful. In the

middle of the table was a pail of milk, a pile of eggs, four unplucked

fowls, and two sucking pigs, arranged with some

pretence of ornament, with two officer's sword-knots to better

the attempt at decoration, and the whole surmounted by a

placard reading: "Only the brave deserve the fare."

"Gaze, Miss Meredith!', cried Andre, jubilantly. "See

the results of a valour of which you were the inspiration!

Marathon, Cressy, Fontenoy, and Quebec pale before the march,

the conflict, and the retreat of last night, the glories of which

would ne'er be credited, even alas! were it not necessary that

they should ne'er be told."

"We held counsel concerning our larder," Sir Frederick

explained, as the girl looked questioningly from man to man,

"and agreed that since you had honoured us, we could not dare

to starve you and Mrs. Meredith on salt pork and sea biscuit.

So, last night, Andre and I, with our two servants, laid hold of

a boat, crossed the Delaware, levied tribute on a fat Jersey

farm, and returned ere day had come. Item.--To disobeying

the general orders by stealing through the lines: one hundred

lashes on the bare back. Item.--For ordering a soldier

to break the rules of war: ten days in the guardhouse. Item.

--For plundering, contrary to proclamation: death by shooting.

Wilt drop a tear o'er my grave, fair lady?"

"Oh, sirs!" exclaimed Janice, "you should not--to take

such risk--"

"Not since I went birds-nesting in Kent have I had such a

night's sport," declared Andre, gleefully. "And the thought

that we were checkmating that scoundrel Clowes did not bate

the pleasure. If he were fit company for gentlemen we

have him to dinner to-day, just to spoil his appetite with sight

of our cates."

"You do not like-- Why do you call Lord Clowes

scoundrel?" asked Janice.

Mobray shrugged his shoulders as he made answer: "On

enough grounds and to boot. But 't is sufficient that he gave

his parole to the rebels, and then broke it by escaping to our

lines. He is a living daily disgrace to the uniform we all

wear, and yet his influence is so powerful with Sir William

that we can do nothing against him. Pray Heaven that some

day he'll not be able to keep in the rear, and that the rebels

recapture and give him the rope he merits."

In contrast to the past, the next few days were very happy

ones to Janice. Her mother mended steadily, and was soon

able to come to meals and to stay downstairs. The servants

relieved the girl of all the household drudgery, and spared

her from all dwelling on her empty purse. As for the young

officers, they could not do enough to entertain her, and, it is

to be suspected, themselves. Piquet was quite abandoned,

and in place of it nothing would do Andre but he must teach

Janice to paint. Not to be thrown in the background,

Mobray produced his flute, and, thanks to a fine harpsichord

Franklin had imported for his daughter, was able to have

numberless duets with the maiden. Then they took short

rides to the south of the city, where the Delaware and Schuylkill

safeguarded a restricted territory from rebel intrusion, and

daily walks along the river-front or in the State House

Gardens, where one of the bands of a few regiments garrisoning

the city played every afternoon for the amusement of the

officers and townspeople, and where Janice was made acquainted

with many a young macaroni officer or feminine

toast. Save for the high price of provisions, and the constant

war talk, Philadelphia bore little semblance to being in a state

of semi-siege, and the prize which two armies were striving to

hold or win, not by actual conflict, but by a strategy which

aimed to keep closed or to open sources of supplies.

Late in October Howe's army fell back from Germantown

and took position just outside the city, where it was set to

work throwing up lines of fortifications. And a startling

rumour which seemed to come from nowhere, but which, in

spite of denials from headquarters, spread like wildfire, supplied

a reason for both the retrograde movement and the

construction of blockhouses and redoubts.

"The rebels have the effrontery to give it out that they

have captured General Burgoyne's whole force," sneeringly

announced Mobray, as he returned from guard mount.

"There seems no limit to the size of their lies."

"La! Sir Frederick," exclaimed Janice, "'t is just what

Colonel--what somebody predicted. He said that if General

Washington could but keep Sir William busy until it would

be too late for him to go General Burgoyne's aid, all would be

well at the end of the campaign."

"And having conceived the hope, they seek to bolster their

cause by spreading the tale abroad," scoffed the baronet.

"'Facile est inventis addere,'" laughed Andre. "They are

merely settling the moot point as to who is the father of

invention."

"What rebel was it bubbled the conceit to you, Miss Meredith?"

inquired Mobray.

"'T was Colonel Brereton," replied the girl, with a faint

hesitation. Then she added, as if a new idea occurred to

her, "So you see the American is not the father of invention,

Colonel Brereton being an Englishman." Though spoken as

an assertion, the statement had a definite question in it.

"Who is this fellow, who, like Charles Lee, fights against

his own country?" asked Andre.

"No one you ever knew, John," replied Mobray; "but I,

who do, have it not in my heart to blame him."

"Wilt not tell us his history?" begged Janice, eagerly.

"Once he said his great-grandfather was King of England,

and since then I've so longed to know it!"

"'T is truth he spoke, poor fellow, but he was an old-time

friend of mine, which would be enough to seal my lips respecting

his sorry tale, since he wishes oblivion for it. But I am

his debtor as well, for he it was who helped me to a prompt

exchange when I was taken prisoner last spring."

"Of course I would not have thee tell me anything that is

secret," remarked Janice. Then, after a moment, she went

on, "There is, however, something of which you may be able

to inform me?"

"But name your desire."

"I must get it," announced the girl, and she left the room

and went upstairs. But once in the upper hallway, she did

not go to her room, merely pausing long enough to take the

miniature from its abiding spot, and then returned. "Wilt

tell me if the diamonds are false?" she requested, placing the

ornament in Andre's hand.

"No, for a certainty," replied the captain.

"Then is it not worth five pounds?" exclaimed Janice.

"Five pounds," laughed Andre, derisively. "'T is easily

worth five hundred!"

"Oh, never!" cried the girl.

"Ay. Am I not right, Mobray?"

"Beyond question. And then 't is not worth the portrait it

encircles," asserted Mobray, gallantly.

"And yet I could not get one pound for it," marvelled

Janice, and told the two officers how she had sought to

barter it.

"'T is evident you asked too little, Miss Meredith," surmised

Andre, "and so made him suspect your title."

"Would that you might offer it to me at a hundred times

five pounds!" bemoaned the baronet. "To think of such a

pearl being cast before such swine

"Who painted it, Miss Meredith?" asked Andre.

"'T was Colonel Brereton."

Mobray looked up quickly at her, then once more at the

miniature. He turned it over, and as the initials on the back

caught his eye, he frowned, but more with intentness than

anger. For a moment he held it, then handed it to Janice

with the remark, "Know you the frame's history?"

"Only that it once held another portrait, and that of a

most beautiful girl."

"Whom he forgot, it appears, once you were seen, for

which small blame to him, Miss Meredith," replied Mobray,

as he rose and left the room, his face set sternly, as if he were

fighting some emotion.

For two days the young officers continued to get infinite

amusement out of the rebel news, but on the third their gibes

and flouts ceased, and a sudden gravity ensued, the cause of

which was explained to the women that evening when the

time had come for "good-night."

"Ladies," said Andre, "the route is ordered before daybreak

to-morrow, so we must say a farewell to you now, and

leave you for a time to the sole charge of Mrs. O'Flaherty.

She has orders from us, and from her putative spouse, to take

the greatest care of you both, and we have endeavoured to

arrange that you shall want for nothing during what we fervently

hope will be but a brief absence."

"For what are you leaving us?" asked Mrs. Meredith.

"In truth, 't is a sorry business," growled Mobray. "Confirmation

came last night of Burgoyne's capitulation, and this

means that General Gates's army will at once effect a juncture

with Washington's, and the combined force will give us more

than we bargained to fight. Burgoyne's fiasco makes it all

the more necessary that we hold Philadelphia, and so, as our

one chance, we must, ere the union is effected, capture the

forts on the Delaware, that our warships and supplies may

come to us, lest, when the moment arrives for our desperate

struggle, we be handicapped by short commons and no line

of retreat."

"Wilt pray for our success, Miss Meredith?"

"Ay," urged the baronet, "for whatever your sympathies,

remember that we fight this time to reunite you with your

father."

And that night Janice made her first plea in behalf of the

British arms.

The absence of Mobray and Andre brought the commissary

once again to the fore. Previous to their departure he had

dropped in upon the Merediths, only to receive a cool greeting

from Janice, and such cold ones from the two captains as

discouraged repetition. Now, relieved of their supercilious

taunts and affronts, the baron became a daily visitor. He

always brought gifts of delicacies, paid open court to Mrs.

Meredith, and never once recurred to the words he had wrung

from Janice, for the time making himself both useful and entertaining.

From his calls the ladies learned the course of the

war and of what the distant cannonading meant: of the bloody

repulse of Donop's Hessians at Red Bank, of the burning of

the Augusta 64, of the bombardment of the forts on Mud

Island, and of the other desperate fighting by which the British

struggled to free their jugular vein, the river, from the

clutch of Washington's forces.

It was Clowes who brought them the best proof of the final

triumph of the royal army, for one November morning he

broke in upon their breakfast, unannounced, and with him

came Mr. Meredith.

Had the squire ever doubted the affection of his wife and

daughter, the next few minutes of inarticulate but ecstatic delight

would have convinced him once for all. Mrs. Meredith,

who, since her fever, had been unwontedly gentle and affectionate,

welcomed him as he had not been greeted in years;

and Janice, shifting from tears to laughter and back again,

wellnigh choked him in her delight. Breakfast was forgotten,

while the exile was made to tell all his adventures, and of how

finally he had escaped from the ship on which perforce he

had been for three months.

"'T was desperate fighting on both sides, but we were too

many for them, and the river is free at last. The transport

'Surrey' was third to come up to the city, and the moment I

was ashore I sought out Lord Clowes, hoping to get word of

ye, and was not disappointed. Pox me! but I'd begun to

think that never again should I see ye!"

There was so much to tell and to listen to in the next few

days that the reunited family gave little heed to public events,

though warm salutations and thanks were lavished on Mobray

and Andre upon the return of the regiments which had operated

against the forts.

An enforced change speedily brought them back to the

present. The mustering of all the royal army, now swelled by

reinforcements of three thousand troops hurriedly summoned

from New York, compelled a rebilleting of the troops, and nine

more officers were assigned by the quartermaster-general to

the Franklin house, overcrowding it to such an extent as to

end the possibility that it should longer shelter the Merediths.

The squire went to Sir William Erskine, only to be told that as

he was a civilian, the Quartermaster's Department could, or

at least would, do nothing for him. An appeal to Clowes resulted

better, for that officer offered to share his own lodgings

with his friends,--a generosity which delighted Mr. Meredith,

but which put an anxious look on his daughter's face and a

scowl on that of Mobray.

"I make no doubt 't was a well-hatched scheme from the

start," he asserted. "Lord Clowes and Erskine are but Tom

Tickle and Tom Scratch."

With the same thought in her own mind, Janice took the

first opportunity to beg her father to seek further rather than

accept the commissary's hospitality.

"Nay, lass," replied Mr. Meredith. "Beggars cannot be

choosers, and that is what we are. Remember that I am

without money, and have been so ever since those rascals

hounded me from home. Had not Lord Clowes generously

stepped forward as he has, we should be put to it to get

through the winter without being frozen or starved. And

your mother's health is not such as could stand either, that

ye know."

"You are quite right, dadda," assented the girl, as she

stooped and kissed him. "I--I had a reason--which now

I will not trouble you with--and selfishly forgot both mommy

and our poverty." Then flinging her arms about his neck, she

hid her head against his shoulder and said: "I am promised

--you have given Philemon your word, and you'll not go

back on it, will you, dadda?" almost as if she were making a

prayer.

"Odds my life! what scatter-brains women are born with!"

marvelled Mr. Meredith. "No wonder the adage runs that

'a woman's mind and a winter's wind oft change'! In the

name of evil, Jan, what started ye off on that tangent?"

"You will keep faith with him, dadda?" pleaded the daughter.

"Of course I will," affirmed the squire. "And glad I am,

lass, to find that ye've come to see that I knew not merely

what was best for ye, but what would make ye happiest. If the

poor lad is ever exchanged, 't will be glad news for him."

The removal to the commissary's quarters might have

been for a time postponed, for barely had the new arrangement

been achieved when another manoeuvre wellnigh

emptied the city of the British troops. Massing fourteen

thousand soldiers, Howe sallied forth to attack the Continental

army in its camp at Whitemarsh.

"We have word," Lord Clowes explained, "that Gates is

playing his own game, and, instead of bringing his army to

Mr. Washington's aid, he keeps tight hold of it, and has, after

needless delay, sent him but a bare four thousand men. So,

in place of waiting for an attack, Sir William intends to drive

the rebels back into the hills, that we may obtain fresh provisions

and forage as we need them."

The movement proved but a march up a hill to march

down again, and four days later saw the British troops back in

Philadelphia with only a little skirmishing and some badly

frosted toes and ears to show for the sally, the young officers

tingling and raging with shame at not having been allowed to

fight the inferior Continental army.

The commissary, however, took it philosophically. "Their

position was too strong, and they shoot too straight," he told

his guests. "It will all turn for the best, since no army can

keep the field in such weather, and Washington will be forced

to go into winter quarters. He must then fall back on Lancaster

and Reading, out of striking distance, leaving us free to

forage on the country at will."

Once again his prediction was wrong. "That marplot of a

rebel general has schemed a new method of troubling us," he

grumbled angrily a week later. "Instead of wintering his

troops in a town, as any other commander would, our spies

bring us word that he has marched them to a strong position

on Valley Creek, a bare twenty miles from here, and has them

all as busy as beavers throwing up earthworks and building

huts. If God does n't kindly freeze the devil's brood, they'll

tie us into our lines just as they did last winter, and give us an

ounce of lead for every pound of forage we seek. No sooner

do we beat them, and take possession of a town, than they

close in and put us in a state of siege, just as if they were the

superior force. Small wonder that Sir William has written the

Ministry that America can't be conquered, and asking his

Majesty's permission to resign. A curse on the man who

conceived such a mode of warfare!"

XLI

WINTER QUARTERS

No sooner had the British returned from their brief

sally than they settled into winter quarters, and

gave themselves up to such amusements as the

city afforded or they could create.

The commissary had taken good heed to have one of the

finest of the deserted Whig houses in the city assigned to him,

and whatever it had once lacked had been supplied. A

coach, a chair, and four saddle-horses were at his beck and

call; a dozen servants, some military and some slave, performed

the household and stable work; a larder and a cellar,

filled to repletion, satisfied every creature need, and their

contents were served on plate and china of the richest.

"I' faith," explained the officer, when Mr. Meredith commented

on the completeness and elegance of the establishment,

"'t is something to be commissary-general in these times; and

since the houses about Germantown were to be destroyed, 't was

contrary to nature not to take from them what would serve to

make me comfortable. Their owners, be they friends or foes,

are none the poorer, for they think it all perished in the flames,

as it would have done but for my forethought."

However lavish the hospitality of Lord Clowes could be

under these circumstances, it was not popular with the army,

and such officers as came to eat and drink at his table were

more remarkable for their gastronomic abilities than for their

wits and manners. In his civilian guests the quality was

better, the man being so powerful through his office that the

best of the townsfolk only too gladly gathered about his table

when they were bidden,--an eagerness at which the commissary

jeered even while he invited them.

"They are all to be bought," he sneered. "There is Tom

Willing, who made the most part of his money importing

Guinea niggers, and now is in a mortal funk lest some of it,

like them, shall run away. Two years ago he was a member

of the rebel Congress and a partner of that desperate speculator

Morris, with a hand thrust deep in the Continental

treasury rag-bag. Now he has trimmed ship better than any

of his slavers ever did, gone about on the opposite tack, and

is so loyal to British rule that his greatest ambition is to get

his other hand in some government contracts. He and his

pretty wife will dine here every time they are asked, and so

will all the rest, ye'll see."

During the first days in their new domiciliary, Janice

showed the utmost nervousness, seldom leaving her mother's

or father's side, and never venturing into the hallways without

a previous peep to see that they were empty. As the

weeks wore on without any attempt on the commissary's part

to surprise her into a tete-a-tete, to recur to the words he had

forced her to utter, or to be anything but a polite, entertaining,

and thoughtful host, the girl gained courage, and little

by little took life more equably. She would have been been

less easy, though better able to understand his conduct, had

she overheard or had repeated to her a conversation between

Lord Clowes and her father on the day that they first took up

their new abode.

"A beggar's thanks are lean ones, Clowes," the squire had

said, over the wine; "but if ever the dice cease from throwing

me blanks, ye shall find that Lambert Meredith has not

forgot your loans of home and money."

"Talk not to me in such strain, Meredith," replied the

host, with the frank, hearty manner he could so well command.

"I ask no better payment than your company, but

't is in your power to shift the debt onto my shoulders at any

time, and by a single word at that."

"How so?"

"It has scarce slipped thy memory that in a moment's

mistrust of thee--which I now concede was both unfriendly

and unjustifiable--I sought to run off with thy beautiful maid.

She was ready to marry me out of hand; but give thy consent

as well, and I shall be thy debtor for life."

"Ye know--" began Mr. Meredith.

"And what is more," went on the suitor, "though 't is not

for me to make boast, I can assure ye that Lord Clowes is no

bad match. In the last two years I've salted down nigh sixty

thousand pounds in the funds and bank stock."

"Adzooks!" aspirated the squire. "How did ye that?"

"Hah, hah!" laughed the commissary, triumphantly.

"That is what it is to play the cards aright. 'T was all from

being carried on that cursed silly voyage to the Madeiras

which at that moment I deemed the work of the Evil One

himself. I could get but a passage to Halifax, and by luck I

arrived there just as Sir William put in with the fleet from

Boston. We had done a stroke or two of business in former

times, and so I was able to gain his ear, and unfold a big

scheme to him."

"And what was that?"

"Hah! a great scheme," reiterated Clowes, smacking his

lips, after a long swallow of spirits. "Says I, make me commissary-general,

and I'll make our fortunes. We'll impress

food and forage, and the government shall pay us for every

pound of--"

"'T was madness," broke in Mr. Meredith. "Dost not

know that nothing has so stirred the people as the taking

their crops without payment?"

"Like as not," assented the commissary; "but 't is also the

way to subdue them. They began a war, and they must pay

the usual penalty until they are sickened of it. And since the

seizures were to be made, 't was too good a chance not to turn

an honest penny. Pray Heaven they don't lay down their

arms too soon, for I ambition to be wealthier still. Canst

hope better for your daughter than that she be made Lady

Clowes, and rich to boot?"

"She's promised--" began the squire, but once again

the suitor cut him off.

"She herself told me she is pledged to no one but me."

"Nay, I've passed my word to Leftenant Hennion."

"Chut! A subaltern who'll bless his stars if he ever is

allowed to starve on a captain's pay. Thou canst not really

mean to do thy daughter such an injury?"

My word is passed; and Lambert Meredith breaks not

that. The lad 's a good boy, too, who'll make her a good

husband, with a fine estate, if peace ever comes again in the

land."

The officer thrummed a moment on the table. "Then 't is

only thy word to this fellow, and no want of friendliness that

leads thee to give me nay?" he asked.

"Of that ye may be sure," assented Mr. Meredith, eagerly

availing himself of the easy escape from the quandary that his

host made for him.

"And but for the promise ye'd give her to me?"

The father hesitated and swallowed before he made reply,

and when the words came, it was with an observable reluctance

that he said: "Ye should know that."

"That is all I ask," cried the commissary. "I knew ye

were not the man to eat another's bread and not do what ye

could for him. We'll not hope for harm to the lad, but if

the camp fever or small-pox or aught else should come to him,

I'll remind ye of the promise ye've just spoken, sure that the

man who won't break his word to one won't to t' other."

"That ye may tie to," acceded Mr. Meredith, though with

a dubious manner, as if something perplexed him. And in

his own room that evening he paused for a moment after

removing his wig and remarked to himself: "Promise I suppose

I did, though I ne'er intended it. Well, let 's hope that

Phil gets her; and if some miscarriage prevents, 't is something

that she should be made great and rich, though I wish

the money had come in some more honest way to a more

honest man."

As for the commissary, once retired to his own room, he

wrote a letter which he superscribed "To David Sproat, Deputy

Commissary of Prisoners at New York." But this done, he

tore it up, and tossed the fragments into the fire, with the

remark: "Why should I put my name to it, when Loring or

Cunningham can give the order just as well? I'll see one or

t' other to-morrow, and so prevent all chance of its being

traced to me." Then he sat looking for a time at the embers

reflectively. "'T is folly to want her," he said finally, as he

rose and began the removal of his coat, "now that ye need

not her money; but she's enough to tempt any man with

blood in his veins, and I can afford the whim. Keep that

blood in check, however, till ye have her fast; and do not

frighten her as ye have done. To think of Lord Clowes,

cool enough to match any man, losing his head over a whiffling

bit of woman-flesh! What devil's baits they are!"

Put at ease by the commissary's conduct toward her, Janice

entered eagerly into the gaiety with which the army beguiled

the tedium of winter quarters. Dislike of Clowes precluded

Andre and Mobray from coming to the house, but they saw

much of the maiden elsewhere. She and Peggy Chew had

been made known to each other by Andre early in the

British occupation, and they promptly established the warm

friendship that girls of their age so easily form, and spent

many hours together. The two captains were quick to discover

that the Chew house was a pleasant one, and became

almost as constant visitors there as Janice herself. At Andre's

suggestion the painting lessons were resumed, with Miss Chew

as an additional pupil, and he undertook to teach them French

as well; the music, too, was revived for Mobray's benefit,

though now more often as a trio or quartette; and many other

pleasures were shared in common. Both young officers were

deeply concerned in the series of plays for which the theatre

was being made ready; and the girls not merely heard them

rehearse their respective parts, but with scissors and needles

helped to make costumes for the amateur actors.

"Oh!" sighed Janice one day, after hearing Mobray

through his lines in "The Deuce is in Him," "I'd give a

finger but to see it played."

"See it!" exclaimed the baronet. "Of course you'll

see it."

"They say there 's a great demand for places," demurred

Peggy.

"Have no fear as to that," said Andre. "Do you think

I've risked my neck painting the curtain and scenery, and

worked myself thin over it generally, not to get what I deserve

in return. My name was next down after Sir William's for a

box, and in it such beauty shall be exhibited that 't is likely

we poor Thespians will get not so much as a look from the

exquisites of the pit."

"Lack-a-day!" grieved Janice, "mommy will never hear of

my going to see a play. I've not so much as dared to tell

her that I'm helping you."

"Devil seize me, but you shall attend, if it takes a provost

guard to do it," predicted Mobray.

Neither the protests nor prayers of the baronet, however,

served to gain Mrs. Meredith's consent that her daughter

should enter what she called "The Devil's Pit," but what he

could not bring to pass the commissary did.

"I have bespoke a box for the first performance at the

theatre," Lord Clowes announced at dinner one evening,

"and bid ye all as my guests."

"'T is a sinful place, to which I will never lend my countenance,"

said Mrs. Meredith, with such promptness as to

suggest a forestalling of her husband and daughter.

The commissary bowed his head in apparent acquiescence,

but when he and the squire were left to their wine he recurred

to the matter.

"I look to ye, Meredith," he said, "to overcome your

wife's absurd whimsey."

"'T is useless to argue with Matilda when her mind 's made

up," answered the husband, dejectedly. "That I have learned

time and again."

"And so 't is with all women, if a man 's so foolish as to

argue. Didst ever hear of ignorance paying heed to reason?

There's but one way to deal with the sex: 'Do this, do that;

ye shall, ye sha'n't,' is all the vocabulary a man needs to make

matrimony agreeable. Put your foot down, and, mark me,

she'll come to heel like a spaniel. But go ye must, for Sir

William makes it a positive point that all of prominence attend

the theatre and assembly, that the public may learn that

the gentry are with us."

"They brought no clothes for such occasions," objected the

squire, falling back on a new line of defence.

"Take fifty pounds more from me; 't will be money well

spent."

"I like not to increase my borrowings, and especially for

female fallals and furbelows."

"Nonsense, man; don't shy at a few hundred pounds. Ye

know one year of order and rents will pay all ye owe me twice

over. Ye must not displeasure Sir William for such a sum."

So it came to pass that the squire, when they rejoined the

ladies, emboldened by his wine, promptly let fall the observation

that he had decided they were all to go to the

theatre.

"Thou heardst me say that I am principled against it,"

dissented Mrs. Meredith.

"Tush, Matilda! I gave in to your Presbyterian swaddling

clothes and lacing-strings at Greenwood, but now ye must do

as I say. So get ye to a mercer's to-morrow, and set to on

proper clothes."

"Dost wish to see thy wife and daughter damned,

Lambert?"

"Ay, if that 's to be my fate, and so should ye. Go I shall

to the theatre, and so shall Janice. If ye prefer salvation to

our company, stay at home."

"Oh, mommy, please, please go," eagerly implored Janice.

"Captain Andre assures me that 't is not in the least evil."

With tears in her eyes, Mrs. Meredith rose. "'T is not

right; but if sin thou must, I too will eat of the fruit, rather

than be parted from thee." She kissed both Mr. Meredith

and Janice with an almost savage tenderness, and passed

hurriedly from the room, leaving a very astounded husband

and a very delighted daughter.

The girl's delight was not lessened the next day when they

went a-shopping, and with the purchases a sudden end was

put to her help of the theatricals, and even, temporarily, to

the French and painting lessons. If ever maid was grateful

for the weary hours of training in fine sewing and embroidery,

Janice was, as she toiled, with cheeks made hectic by excitement,

over the frock in which her waking thoughts were

centred. When finally the day came for the trying on, and it

fulfilled her highest expectation, her ecstasy, unable to contain

itself, was forced to find expression, and she poured the rapture

out in a letter to Tabitha, though knowing full well that

only by the luckiest chance could it ever be sent.

"Only to think of it, Tibbie!" she wrote. "We are to have

plays given by the officers, and weekly dancing assemblies, and

darling dadda says I am to go to both; and all my gowns being

monstrous nugging and frumpish, he told mommy to see that I

had a new one, though where the money came from (for though

I did every stitch myself, it cost a pretty penny--no less than

seventeen pounds and eight shillings, Tibbie!) I have puzzled

not a little to fancy. I fear me I cannot describe it justly to

you, but I will do my endeavour. 'T is a black velvet with pink

satin sleeves and stomacher, and a pink satin petticoat, over

which is a fall of white crape; the sides open in front, spotted

all over with gray embroidery, and the edge of the coat and

skirt trimmed with gray fur. Oh, Tibbie, 't is the most elegant

and dashy robing that ever was! Pray Heaven I don't dirt it

for it is to serve for the whole winter! Peggy has three new

frocks, and Margaret Shippen four, but mine is the prettiest,

and by tight lacing (though no tighter than theirs) I make my

waist an ell smaller than either. In addition, I have a nabob

of gray tabby silk trimmed with the same fur, which has such

a sweet and modish air that I could cry at having to remove it

but for what it would conceal. I intend to ask Peggy if 't would

be citified and a la mode to keep it on for a little while after

entering the box by the plea that the playhouse is cold. The

high mode now is to dress the hair enormous tall--a good

eight inches, Tibbie--over a steel frame, powdered mighty

white, and to stick a mouchet or two on the face. It seems to

me I cannot wait for the night, yet my teeth rattle and my hands

tremble and I am all in a shake whenever I think of it; if I

can but keep from being mute as a stock-fish, and gawkish, for

I am all alive with fear that I shall be both, and shame us all!

Peggy has taught me the minuet glide and curtsey and languish,

and I am to step it at the first Assembly with Captain Andre,--

such a pretty, engaging fellow, Tibbie, who will never swing for

want of tongue; and Lord Rawdon has bespoke my hand for

the quadrille,--a stern, frowning man, who frights me greatly,

but 't is a monstrous distinction I need scarce say to be asked

by one who will some day be an earl, Tibbie--and I dance the

Sir Roger de Coverley with Sir Frederick Mobray, who is delightsome,

too, by his rallying, performs most entrancingly on

the flute, and is one of the best bowlers in the weekly cricket

matches, but who is said to play very deep at Pharaoh in the

club the officers have established; and to keep a great number

of fighting cocks on which he wagers vast sums--if rumour

speaks true, as high as a hundred guineas on a single main,

Tibbie--at the cock-pit they have set up. A great crowd assembled

yesterday to see him and Major Tarleton ride their

chargers from Sixth Street to the river on a bet, and he lost

because a little girl toddled out from the sidewalk and he pulled

up, while the major, who is a wonderful horseman, spurred

and leaped over her. But he was blamed for taking the risk,

for his horse might not have risen, so Colonel Harcourt told

Nancy Bond. 'T was Major Tarleton, I daresay you recollect;

who was at our house when General Lee was captivated; and

P. Hennion then told me he was considered the most reckless

and dare-devil officer in the cavalry, but a cruel man. 'Mr.

Lee,' as they all term him, here,--for they will not give the

Whigs any titles,--has just been brought to Philadelphia and

is at large on parole, pending an exchange, which has been delayed

because 't is feared by the British that any convention may

be taken as a recognition of the rebels, and be so considered by

France and Spain.

"So much has happened," the letter-writer continued a week

later, "I scarce know where to begin, Tibbie, nor how to convey

to you the wondrous occurrences. Oh, Tibbie, Tibbie, plays

are the most amazing and marvellous things in the world! Not

a one of the officers could I recognise, so changed they were, and

they did us females to the life. 'T was so enchanting that at

times I found myself gasping through very forgetfulness to breathe,

and I was dreadfully rallied and quizzed because I burst into

tears when the poor minor seemed to have lost both his love and his

property. But how can I touch off my feelings, when, in the

fourth act; the villain was detected; and all ended as it should!

And, oh! Tibbie, mommy enjoyed it nearly as much as I,

though the farce at the end vastly shocked her--and, indeed,

Tibbie, 't was most indelicate, and made me blush a scarlet, and

all the more that Sir William whispered that he enjoyed the

broad parts through my cheeks--and she says if dadda insists,

we'll go again, though not to stay to the farce. We had to sit

in Lord Clowes' box--which sadly affronted Captain Andre

--and Sir William, who has hitherto kept himself muck secluded;

made his first appearance in public, and, as you wilt

have inferred, visited our box during a part of the performance,

drawing all eyes upon us, which agitated me greatly. Dadda

told him I was learning to sketch, and nothing would do but I

must give him an example, so on the back of the play-bill I

made a caricature of General Lee, which was extravagantly

praised, and was passed from hand to hand all over the house,

and excited a titter wherever it went, for the general was in attendance;

but judge of my feelings, Tibbie, when an officer

passed it to Lee himself! He fell into a mighty rage, and demanded

aloud to know who had thus insulted him, and but for

Lord Clowes and Sir William preventing me, I'd have fled

from the place, I was in such a panic. Pray Heaven he never

learn! I dare not repeat to thee half the civil things which

were said of this 'sweet creature,' as they styled me, for fear

thou'lt think me vain. 'As thee is, I doubt not,' I hear thee

say. Saucy Tibbie Drinker!"

At the very time that this account was being penned, some

twenty miles away, a man was also writing, and a paragraph in

his letter read:--

"Our going into winter quarters, instead of keeping the field,

can have been reprobated only by those gentlemen who think

soldiers are made of stocks and stones and equally insensible to

frost and snow; and, moreover, who conceived it easily practicable

for an inferior army, under the disadvantages we are

known to labour under, to confine a superior one, in all respects

well appointed and provided for a winter's campaign, within

the city of Philadelphia, and to cover from depredation and

waste the States of Pennsylvania and Jersey. But what makes

this matter still more extraordinary in my eye is that those very

gentlemen--who well know that the path of this army from

Whitemarsh to Valley Forge might have been tracked by the

blood of footprints, and that not a boot or shoe had since been

issued by the commissaries: who are well apprised of the

nakedness of the troops from ocular demonstration; whom I

myself informed of the fact that some brigades had been four

days without meat, and were unsupplied with the very straw to

save them from sleeping on the bare earth floors of the huts, so

that one-third of this army should be in hospitals, if hospitals

there were, and that even the common soldiers had been forced

to come to my quarters to make known their wants and suffering

--should think a winter's campaign and the covering of

these States from the invasion of an enemy so easy and practical

a business. I can assure those gentlemen that it is a much

easier and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances in a

comfortable room by a good fireside than to keep a cold, bleak

hill and sleep under frost and snow without clothes or blankets.

However, although they seem to have little feeling for the naked

and distressed soldiers, I feel superabundantly for them, and

from my soul I pity those miseries which it is neither in my

power to relieve nor prevent.

"It is for these reasons that I dwelt upon the subject to Congress;

and it adds not a little to my other difficulties and distress

to find that much more is expected of me than it is possible

to perform, the more that upon the ground of safety and policy

I am obliged to conceal the true state of this army from public

view, and thereby expose myself to detraction and calumny."

The letter completed, the man took up the tallow dip, and

passed from the cramped, chilly room in which he had sat to

a still more cold and contracted hallway. Tiptoeing up a

stairway, he paused a moment to listen at a door, then

entered.

"I heard your voice, Brereton, so knew you were waking.

Well, Billy, how does the patient?"

"Pohly, massa, pohly. De doctor say de ku'nel 'ud do

fus-class ef he only would n't wherrit so, but he do nothin'

but toss an' act rambunctious, an' dat keep de wound fretted

an' him feverish."

"And fret I will," came a voice from the bed, "till I've

done with this feather-bed coddling and am allowed to take

my share of the work and privation."

"Nay, my boy," said Washington, coming to the bedside

and laying his hand kindly on Jack's shoulder; "there is

naught to be done, and you are well out of it. Give the

wound its chance to heal."

Brereton gave a flounce. "Do, in the name of mercy, Billy,

get me a glass of water," he begged querulously. Then, after

the black had departed, he asked: "What has Congress

done?"

"They have voted Gates president of the Board of War,

with almost plenary powers."

"A fit reward for his holding back until too late the troops

that would have put us, and not the British, in Philadelphia

this winter. You won't let their ill-treatment force you into a

resignation, sir?"

"I have put my hand to the plough and shall ne'er turn

back. If I leave the cause, it will be by their act and not

mine.

"Congress may hamper and slight you, sir, but will not

dare to supersede you, for very fear of their own constituents.

The people trust you, if the politicians don't."

"Set your mind on more quieting things, Brereton," advised

Washington, taking the young fellow's hand affectionately.

"May you have a restful night."

"One favour before you go, your Excellency," exclaimed

Jack, as the general turned. "I--Could n't--Does McLane

still get his spies into the city?"

"Almost daily."

"Could he--Wilt ask him--to--to make inquiry--if

possible--of one--concerning Miss Janice Meredith, and

let me know how she fares?"

The general pressed the aide's hand, and was opening his

lips, when a figure, covered by a negligee night-gown of green

silk, appeared at the door.

"I've heard thee exciting John for the last half-hour, Mr.

Washington," she said upbraidingly. "I am amazed at thy

thoughtlessness."

"Nay, Patsy, I but stopped in to ask how he did and to

bid him a good-night," replied Washington, gently.

"A half-hour," reiterated Mrs. Washington, sternly, "and

now you still tarry."

"Only because you block the doorway, my dear," said the

husband, equably. "If I delayed at all, 't was because Brereton

wished to set in train an inquiry concerning his sweetheart."

"His what?" exclaimed the dame. "Let me pass in, Mr.

Washington. John must tell me all about her this moment."

"You said he should sleep, Patsy," replied the general,

smiling. "Come to our room, my dear, and I'll tell you

somewhat of her."

But however much may have been told in the privacy of

the connubial chamber, one fact was not stated: That far

back in the bottom drawer of the bureau in which Janice

kept her clothes lay a half-finished silk purse, to which not

a stitch bad been added since the day that the muttering

of the guns of Brandywine had sounded through the streets

of Philadelphia.

XLII

BARTER AND SALE

The first check to Janice's full enjoyment of the

novel and delightful world into which she had

plunged so eagerly came early in March.

"I have ill news for thee, my child," Mr. Meredith

apprised her, as he entered the room where she was sitting.

"I just parted from Mr. Loring, the Commissary of Prisoners,

and he asked if Philemon Hennion were not a friend of ours,

and then told me that the deputy-commissary at Morristown

writ him last week that the lad had died of the putrid fever."

"I am very sorry," the girl said, with a genuine regret in

her voice. "He--I wish--I can't but feel that 't is something

for which I am to blame."

"Nay, don't lay reproach on yeself, Jan," advised the

father, little recking of what was in his daughter's mind. "If

we go to blaming ourselves for the results of well-considered

conduct, there is no end to sorrow. But I fear me his death

will bring us a fresh difficulty. We'll say nothing of the news

to Lord Clowes, and trust that he hear not of it; for once

known, he'll probably begin teasing us to let him wed ye."

"Dadda!" cried Janice, "you never would--would give

him encouragement? Oh, no, you--you love me too much."

"Ye know I love ye, Jan, and that whatever I do, I try to

do my best for ye. But--"

"Then don't give him any hope. Oh, dadda, if you knew

how I--"

"He 's not the man I'd pick for ye, Jan, that I grant.

Clowes is--"

"He beguiled me shamefully--and he broke his parole--

and he takes mean advantage whene'er he can--and he

crawls half the time and bullies the rest--and when he's

polite he makes me shudder or grow cold--and when

he's--"

"Now, don't fly into a flounce or a ferment till ye've listened

to what I have to say, child. 'T is--"

"Oh, dadda, no! Don't--"

"Hark to me, Janice, and then ye shall have all the speech

ye wish. By this time, lass, ye are old enough to know that

life is not made up of doing what one wishes, but doing what

one can or must. The future for us is far blacker than I

have chosen to paint to ye. Many of the British officers

themselves now concede that the subduing of the rebels will

be a matter of years, and that ere it is accomplished, the

English people may tire of it; and though I'll ne'er believe

that our good king will abandon to the rule and vengeance of

the Whigs those who have remained loyal to him, yet the outlook

for the moment is darkened by the probability that

France will come to the assistance of the rebels. The Pennsylvania

Assembly has before it an act of attainder and forfeiture

which will drive from the colony all those who have held

by the king, and take from them their lands; and as soon as

the Jersey Assembly meets, it will no doubt do the same, and

vote us into exile and poverty. Even if my having taken no

active part should save me from this fate, the future is scarce

bettered, for 't will take years for the country to recover from

this war, and rents will remain unpaid. Nor is this the depth

of our difficulties. Already I am a debtor to the tune of nigh

four hundred pounds to Lord Clowes--"

"Dadda, no!" cried the girl. "Don't say it!"

"Ay. Where didst thou suppose the money came from on

which I lived in New York and all of us here? Didst think

thy gown came from heaven?"

"I'd have died sooner than owe it to him," moaned Janice.

"How could you let me go to the expense?"

"'T was not to be avoided, Jan. As Sir William's wish

was that we should lend our countenance to the festivities,

't would not have done to displeasure him, and since I was to

be debtor to Lord Clowes, another fifty pounds was not worth

balking at. More still I'll have to ask from him, I fear, ere

we are safe out of this wretched coil."

"Oh, prithee, dadda," implored the girl, "do not take

another shilling. I'll work my fingers to the bone--do anything

--rather than be indebted to him!"

"'T is not to be helped, child. Think ye work is to be

obtained at such a time, with hundreds in the city out of

employment and at the point of starvation? Thank your

stars, rather, that we have a friend who not merely gives us a

shelter and food, but advances us cash enough to make us

easy. Dost think I have not tried for employment myself?

I've been to merchant after merchant to beg even smouting

work, and done the same to the quartermaster's and commissary's

departments, but nothing wage-earning is to be had."

"'T is horrible!" despairingly wailed Janice.

"That it might be blacker can at least be said, and that is

why I wish thee not to let thy feelings set too strongly against

Lord Clowes. Here 's a peer of England, Jan, with wealth as

well, eager to wed thee. He is not what I would have him,

but it would be a load off my mind and off thy mother's to

feel that thy future at least is made safe and--"

"I'd die sooner than live such a future," cried the girl.

"I could not live with him!"

"Yet ye ran off with this man."

"But then I did not know him as I know him now. You

won't force me, will you, dadda?"

"That I'll not; but act not impulsively, lass. Talk with

thy mother, and view it from all sides. And meantime, we'll

hope he'll not hear of the poor lad's death."

Left alone by her father to digest this advice, Janice lapsed

into a despondent attitude, while remarking: "'T is horrible,

and never could I bring myself to it. Starvation would be

easier." She sat a little time pondering; then, getting her

cloak, calash, and pattens, she set forth, the look of thought

displaced by one of determination. A hurried walk of a few

squares brought her to the Franklin house, where she asked

for Andre.

"Miss Meredith," cried the captain, as he appeared at the

door, "this is indeed an honour! But why tarry you

outside?"

"I fear me, Captain Andre, that I am doing a monstrous

bold thing, and therefore will not enter, but beg of you instead

that you walk with me a little distance, for I am in a real

difficulty and would ask your help."

The officer caught up his hat and sword, and in a moment

they were walking down Second Street. Several times Janice

unsuccessfully sought to begin her tale, but Andre finally had

to come to her assistance.

"You surely do not fear to trust me, Miss Meredith, and

you cannot doubt the surety of assistance, if it be within my

power?"

For a moment the girl's lips trembled; then she said," Dost

truly think the miniature frame I showed thee is worth as much

as five hundred pounds?"

"I think 't is, beyond doubt."

"And dost thou think that thee couldst obtain four hundred

pounds for it?"

"Of that I can scarce give assurance, for 't is a question

whether a purchaser can be found for it. Yet I make small

doubt, Miss Meredith," he added, "that if you will leave

your portrait in it, one man there is in Philadelphia will

gladly buy it at that price, though he run in debt to do it.

If you desire to sell it, why do you not offer it to Mobray?"

The girl had coloured with Andre's first remark, and ere he

had completed his speech, her cheeks were all aglow. "I--

I could not offer it to him. Surely you can understand that

't would be impossible?" she stammered.

"I suppose I am dull-witted not to know it," said Andre,

hurriedly, in evident desire to lessen her embarrassment.

"However, 't was but a suggestion, and if you desire to sell,

I will gladly undertake to negotiate it for you."

"Oh, will you?" cried the girl, eagerly. "'T will so

greatly service me."

Without more ado, she held out her hand, which contained

the miniature, and after a second outburst of thanks, quite

unconscious of the fact that she was leaving him abruptly,

she hurried away, not homeward, but in a direction which

presently brought her to a house before which a sentry paced,

where she stopped.

"Is Sir William within?" she asked of the uniformed

servant who answered her knock; and when told that he was,

added: "Wilt say that Miss Meredith begs speech with him?"

The servant showed her into the parlour, then passed into

the room back of it, and Janice heard the murmur of his

words as he delivered her message.

"Miss Meredith," cried a woman's voice. "What does

that puss want with you, Sir William?"

The bass of a masculine reply came to the visitor's ears,

though pitched too low for her to distinguish words.

"I know better than to take any man's oath concerning

that," retorted the feminine speaker; and on the last word

the door was flung wider open, and a woman of full figure and

of very pronounced beauty burst into the room where the girl

sat, closely followed, if not in fact pursued, by the British

commander-in-chief. "What do you want with Sir William?"

she demanded.

Janice had risen, half in fright and half in courtesy; but

the cry she uttered, even as the inquiry was put, was significant

of something more than either.

"Well," went on the questioner, "art struck with a syncope

that thou dost nothing but gape and stare at me?"

"I beg your pardon," faltered the girl. "I recognised--

that is--I mean, 't was thy painting that--"

"Malapert!" shrieked the woman. "How dare you say

I paint! Dost have the vanity to think thou 'rt the only one

with a red and white skin?"

"Oh, indeed, madam," gasped Janice, "I alluded not to

thy painting and powdering, but to the miniature that--"

"Sir William," screamed the dame, too furious even to

heed the attempted explanation, "how can you stand there

and hear this hussy thus insult me?"

"Then in Heaven's name get back to the room from which

you should ne'er have come," muttered Howe, crossly.

"And leave you to the tete-a-tete you wish with this bold

minx."

"Ay, leave me to learn why Miss Meredith honours me with

this visit."

"You need not my absence, if that is all you wish to know.

'T would be highly wrong to leave a miss, however artful,

unmatronised. Here I stay till I see cause to change my

mind."

Sir William said something below his breath with a manner

suggestive of an oath, shrugged his shoulders, and turned to

Janice. "Old friends are not to be controlled, Miss Meredith,"

he said, "and since we are to have a third for our interview,

let me make you known to each other. Mrs. Loring, Miss

Meredith."

"I pray you, madam, to believe," entreated Janice, even as

she made her curtsey, "that you entirely misinterpreted--"

"I care not what you meant," broke in Mrs. Loring, without

the pretence of returning the obeisance. "Say your say

to Sir William, and be gone."

"Damn you, Jane!" swore the general, bursting into a

rage. "If you cannot behave yourself I will call in the

servants and have you put from the room. Please be seated,

Miss Meredith, and tell me in what manner I can serve you."

"I came, Sir William, to beg that you would give my father

some position by which he could earn a living. We are

totally without money, and getting daily deeper in debt."

"Your wish is a command," replied Sir William, gallantly,

"but are you sure 't is best? Remember that the moment

your father takes position from me he commits himself far

more in the cause than he has hitherto, and the rebels are

making it plain they intend to punish with the utmost severity

all who take sides with us."

"But even that is better than--than--than living on charity,"

exclaimed Janice. "I assure you that anything is better--"

"Enough!" declared the general, as the girl hesitated.

"Your father shall be gazetted one of the wardens of abandoned

property at once. 'T will give him a salary and fees

as well."

"Ah, Sir William, how can I ever thank you enough?"

murmured the girl, feeling, indeed, as if an end had come to

her troubles. She made a deep curtsey to Mrs. Loring, a

second to the general, and then took the hand he offered her

to the front door. "I beg, Sir William," she said at parting,

"that you will assure Mrs. Loring that I really did not--"

The general interrupted her with a laugh. "A man with

an evil smell takes offence at every wrinkled nose," he asserted,

"and you hit upon a subject on which my friend has perhaps

cause to be sensitive."

Janice ran rather than walked the whole way home, and,

not stopping when she reached the house to tell her father

of her successful mission, or even to remove her cloak and

calash, she tripped upstairs to her room, went straight to her

bureau, and, pulling open the bottom drawer, took from it the

unset miniature, and scrutinised it closely for a moment.

"'T is she beyond question!" the girl ejaculated. "And I

always thought of her as a young female, never suspecting it

might have been some time painted. Why, she is a good ten

years older than Colonel Brereton, or at least eight, let alone

that she paints and powders! If that is the ill-mannered

creature he gave his love to, I have little pity for him."

This decided, the maiden sought out her father and informed

him of her mission and its successful result.

"Why, Jan," exclaimed her father, "thou 'rt indeed a

wonderful lass to have schemed and carried it through. I'd

have spoken to Sir William myself, but he keeps himself so

secluded that never a chance have I had to speak to him

save in public. It is for the best, however, for I doubt not

he paid more heed to thy young lips than ever he would to

mine. Hadst thou told me, however, I would have gone with

thee, for it must have been a tax on thy courage to have

ventured alone."

I did n't even let myself think of it," replied the daughter,

"and, indeed, 't was so much easier than the thought of your

further increasing your debt to Lord Clowes that 't was

nothing." Then, after a slight pause, she asked: "Dadda,

who is the Mrs. Loring I found at Sir William's?"

"Humph!" grunted the squire, with obvious annoyance.

"'T is the wife of Joshua Loring, commissary of prisoners."

"Has she been long married to him?" asked Janice.

"That I know not; and the less ye concern yourself, Jan,

with her, the better."

Despite this recommendation, Janice once again repeated

her question, this time making it to Andre at the Assembly

that evening.

"I know not," the captain told her, pursing up his lips and

raising his eyebrows. Then he called to his opposite in the

quadrille: "Cathcart, can you tell me how long Mrs. Loring

has rejoiced in that title of honour?"

The earl laughed as if Andre had said something witty, and

made reply: "Since ever I can remember, and that is a full

five years."

When later the dancers adjourned to the supper-room,

Lord Cathcart tossed a billet across the table to Andre, and

he in turn passed it to Mobray, who was squiring Janice.

The baronet held it so that she could see the message as well,

and inscribed on the paper were the lines:--

"Your question don't think me a moment ignoring:

'How long has she honoured the surname of Loring?'

Wiseacre, first tell, how a man without honour

Could ever confer that fair jewel upon her?"

Sir Frederick, before handing it back, took Janice's pencil

from her dancing-card, and scribbled on the back of the

quip:--

"The answer is plain, for by means of her face,

The lady secured him an honourable place.

In return for the favour, by clergy and vow,

She made sure of her honour, but who knows when or Howe?"

And from that interchange of epigrams Janice asked no

further questions relative to Mrs. Loring, unless it might be

of herself.

XLIII

A CHOICE OF EVILS

At this ball Janice was gladdened by word from

Andre that he had effected the sale of the miniature,

though he maintained absolute silence as to who

the purchaser was, nor did she choose to inquire.

The next morning brought a packet from him containing

a rouleau of guineas, and so soon as they were counted, the

girl hurried to the room on the ground floor which the commissary

had taken as a half office, and, after an apology for

the unannounced intrusion, said,--

"You have been good enough, Lord Clowes, to favour us

with sundry loans, for which we can never be grateful enough,

but 't is now in our power to repay them."

"Pay me!" cried the baron, incredulously.

"Yes," replied Janice, laying down the pile of gold on the

desk. "Wilt tell me the exact amount?"

The guineas were too indisputable for Clowes to question

the girl's ability to carry out her intention, but he demanded,

"How came you by such a sum of gold?"

"'T is--That concerns thee not," replied the girl, with

spirit.

"And does thy father know?"

"I ask you, Lord Clowes," Janice responded, "to tell me

the amount we owe you."

For a moment the officer sat with a scowl on his face, then

suddenly he threw it off, and with a hearty, friendly manner

said: "Nay, Miss Meredith, think naught of it. You 're

welcome ten times over to the money, and what more ye

shall ever need." He rose as he spoke, and held out his

hand toward the girl. "Generosity is not the monopoly of

razorless youngsters of twenty."

Janice, ignoring the hand, said: "Once again, Lord

Clowes, I ask you to inform me of the amount of our debt,

which if you will not tell me, you will force me to leave all

the money."

The angry frown returned to the commissary's face, and all

the reply he made was to touch a bell. "Tell Mr. Meredith

I would have word with him in my office," he said to the

servant. Then he turned to Janice and remarked, "If ye

insist on knowing the amount, 't is as well that your father

give it to ye, since clearly ye trust me in nothing."

"Oh, Lord Clowes," begged Janice, "wilt thou not let me

pay this without calling in dadda? I--I acted without first

speaking to him, and I fear me--" There her words were

cut short by the entrance of the squire.

"I sent for ye, man, to help us unsnarl a coil. Your

daughter insists on repaying the money I have loaned ye, and

I thought it best ye should be witness to the transaction."

As he ended he pointed to the pile of coin.

"Odds bodikins!" exclaimed Mr. Meredith, as his eye

followed the motion. "And where got ye such a sum,

Jan?"

"Oh, dadda," faltered the girl, "'t is a long story, of which

I promise to make you a full narration, once we are alone,

though I fear me you will think that I have done wrong.

But, meantime, will you not tell me how much you owe Lord

Clowes, and let me pay him? Believe me, the money is

honestly come by."

"No doubt, no doubt," said the commissary, with a rough

laugh. "Young macaronis are oft known to give girls hundreds

of pounds and get nothing in return."

All the reply Janice made was to go to the door. "Whenever

you will come to the parlour, dadda, you shall know all,

but I will not stay here to endure such speeches."

Without thought of the gold, Mr. Meredith was hurrying

after his daughter, when Clowes interrupted him.

"The explanation is simple enough, Meredith," he said,

"and I cannot but take it in bad part that your maid should

borrow of Mobray in order to repay my loan to you."

"I cannot believe that that is the explanation, Clowes,"

protested Mr. Meredith. "But if it is, be assured that the

money shall be returned him, and we will still stand your

debtors." Then he sought his daughter, and she poured out

to him the whole story of the miniature.

"Wrong I may have been, dadda, to have taken it to begin

with, but Colonel Brereton refused to receive it from me, and

when he himself placed it about my picture, I could not but

feel that it had truly become mine, and that I could dispose

of it."

"But who bought it of ye, Jan?" inquired the parent.

"That I know not," said the girl, though hesitating and

colouring at the question in her own mind whether she were

not prevaricating, for Andre's face and her own suspicions had

really convinced her who was the nameless buyer. "Captain

Andre assured me that the frame was fully worth five hundred

pounds."

"That I will not gainsay, lass," replied the squire, "and

the only blame I will lay on ye is that ye did not consult me

before acting, for I could have negotiated it as well, and should

have so managed as not to have offended Clowes. However, I

make no doubt he'll not hold rancour when he knows that

the money came by the sale of a piece of jewelry, and was not

merely borrowed. Did ye take your picture from the frame?"

"No, dadda. I did so once before, only to bring suspicion

on myself; so this time I let it remain."

"Ye might as well have removed it," said Mr. Meredith,

"for it could have added no money value to it." Yet the

squire had once been a lover, and should have known otherwise.

This said, he returned to Clowes, and sought to mollify

him by a statement of how the money had been obtained.

"Humph!" grunted the baron. "She'd better have brought

the trinket to me, for I'd gladly have been the purchaser, for

more even than she got by it."

"I told the lass she should have left the sale of it to me,"

answered the squire, "but ye know what women are."

"Egad, I sometimes think, shallow as the sex is, no man fully

knows that. However, we will waste no further parley on the

matter. Put the money in your purse, man, for your future

needs, and think naught about the debt to me."

"Nay, Clowes. Since the money is here, 't is as well to

pay up." And protest and argue as the commissary would,

nothing would do the squire but to count out the amount on

the spot from the heap of guineas, and to pocket, not without

some satisfaction, the small surplus that remained. Then he

left the room in great good cheer; but for some time after he

was gone, the baron, leaving the gold piled on the table, paced

the room in an evident fit of temper, while muttering to himself

and occasionally shaking his head threateningly.

The gazetting of Mr. Meredith served only to increase this

half-stifled anger, and on the very evening his appointment

was announced in the "Pennsylvania Ledger," the commissary

recurred to his proposal.

"I heard by chance to-day that young Hennion had fallen

a victim to the camp fever," he told the squire, "and only

held my tongue before the ladies through not wishing to be

the reporter of bad tidings--though, as I understood it,

neither Mrs. Meredith nor Miss Janice really wished the

match."

The father took time over a swallow of Madeira, then said:

"'T is a grievous end for the good lad."

"Ay, though I am not hypocrite enough to pretend that

it affects me save for its freeing of your daughter, and so

removing the one objection ye made to my taking her to

wife."

Once more the squire gained a moment's breathing space

over his wine before he replied: "Ye know, Clowes, that I'd

willingly give ye the girl, but I find that she will have none

of it, and 't is a matter on which I choose not to force her

inclination."

"Well said; and I am the last man to wish an unwilling

spouse," responded the aspirant. "But ye know women's

ways enough not to be their dupes. In truth, having no stability

of mind, the sex resemble a ship without a rudder, veering

with every shift of the wind, and never sailing two days alike.

But put a man at the helm, and they steer as straight a course

as could be wished. Janice was hot to wed me once, and

though she took affront later because she held me responsible

for her punishment, yet she herself owned, but a few weeks

ago, that she was still bound to me, which shows how little her

moods mean. Having your consent secured, it will take me

but a brief wooing to gain hers, that ye shall see."

"Well," rejoined Mr. Meredith, "she's now old enough to

know her own mind, and if ye can win her assent to your suit,

mine shall not be lacking. But 't is for ye to do that."

"Spoken like a true friend, and here 's my hand on it,"

declared the commissary. "But there is one matter in which

I wish ye to put an interfering finger, not so much to aid me

as to save the maid from hazard. That fopling Mobray is

buzzing about her and pilfering all the sweets that can be had

short of matrimony--"

"Nay, Clowes, he's no intriguer against my lass, that I am

bound to say. 'T was only this morning, the moment he had

news of Hennion's death, he came to me like a man, to ask

permission to address her."

"Ho, he's deeper bitten by her charms than I thought!

retorted the suitor. "Or, on second thought, more like 't is

a last desperate leap to save himself from ruin. Let me warn

ye that he has enough paper out to beggar him thrice over,

and 't is only a question of time ere his creditors come down

on him and force him to sell his commission; after which he

must sink into beggary."

"I sorrow to hear it. He 's a likely lad, and has kindly

stood us in stead more than once."

"And just because of his taking parts, he is likely to keep

your girl's heart in a state of incertitude, for 't is only mortal

for eighteen to fancy twenty more than forty-four. Therefore,

unless ye want a gambling bankrupt for a son-in-law, give

him his marching orders."

"I'll not do that after his kindness to my wife and child;

but I'll take good care to warn Janice."

"Look that ye don't only make him the more interesting to

her. Girls of her age think little of where the next meal is to

come from, and dote on the young prodigal."

"Have no fear on that score," replied the father.

On the morning following this conversation Janice was

stopped by the commissary as she was passing his office.

"Will ye give me the honour of your presence within for a

moment?" he requested. "I have something of import to

say to ye."

With a little trepidation the girl entered, and took the seat

he placed for her.

Taking a standing position at a respectful distance, Lord

Clowes without circumlocution plunged at once into the object

of the interview. "That I have long wished ye for my wife,

Miss Meredith," he said with frank bluffness, "is scarce worth

repeating. That in one or two instances I have given ye

cause to blame or doubt me, I am full conscious; 't is not in

man, I fear, to love such beauty, grace, and elegance, and keep

his blood ever within bounds. 'T was this led me to suggest

our elopement, and to my effort to bind ye to the troth. In

both of these I erred, and now crave a pardon. Ye can scarce

hold me guilty that my love made me hot for the quickest marriage

I could compass, or that, believing ye in honour pledged to

me, I should seek to assure myself of the plight from your

own lips, ungenerous though it was at the moment. It has

since been my endeavour to show that I regretted my impulsive

persecution, and I trust that my long forbearance and self-effacement

have proved to ye that your comfort and happiness

are the first object of my heart."

"You have been very good to us all," answered Janice,

"and I would that I were able to repay in full measure all we

owe to you. But--"

"Ye can, and by one word," interjected the suitor.

"But, Lord Clowes," she continued, with a voice that trembled

a little, "I cannot yield to thy wish. Censurable I know

myself to be--and no one can upbraid me more than I upbraid

myself--yet between the two wrongs I must choose,

and 't is better for both of us that I break the implied promise,

entered into at a moment when I was scarce myself than

to make a new one which I know to be false from the beginning,

and impossible to fulfil."

"Of the old promise we will say naught, Miss Meredith,"

replied the baron. "If your sense of right and wrong absolve

ye, Baron Clowes is not the man to insist upon it. But there

is still a future that ye must not overlook. 'T will be years,

if ever, ere ye once again enjoy your property, and though

this appointment--which is like to prove dear-bought--for

the moment enables ye to face the world, it is but a short-lived

dependence. To ye I will confide what is as yet known

to but a half-dozen: his Majesty has accepted Sir William

resignation, and he leaves us so soon as Sir Henry Clinton

arrives. The new commander will have his own set of hungry

hangers-on to provide with places, and your father's days will

be numbered. In my own help I shall be as unstinting as in the

past, but it is quite on the cards that I, too, lose my appointment,

in which case I shall return to England. Would not

a marriage with me make--"

"But I love you not," broke in Janice.

"Ye have fallen in love with that--"

"I love no one, Lord Clowes; and indeed begin to fear

that I was born without a heart."

"Then your objection is that of a very young girl who

knows nothing of the world. Miss Meredith, the women

who marry for love are rare indeed, and but few of them fail

of a bitter disappointment. I cannot hope that my arguments

will convince ye of this, but counsel with your parents, and ye'll

find they bear me out. On the one side stands eventual penury

and perhaps violence for ye all; on the other, marriage with

a man who, whatever his faults, loves ye hotly, who will give ye

a title and wealth, and who will see to it that your parents

want for nothing. 'T is an alternative that few women would

hesitate over, but I ask no answer now, and would rather

that ye give none till ye have taken consideration upon it."

Janice rose. "I--I will talk with dadda and mommy,"

she said, "and learn their wishes." But even as she spoke

the words a slight shiver unsteadied her voice.

XLIV

A CARTEL OF EXCHANGE

After Janice left him the commissary-general

mounted a horse, and, riding to the Franklin house,

asked for Captain Mobray.

"I have called, sir," he announced, as the baronet

entered the room, "on two matters--"

"Have they to do with the service, my Lord?" interrupted

Mobray; "for otherwise I must decline--"

"First," the caller went on unheedingly, "a number of past-due

bills of yours have come into my possession in exchange

for special victuals or stores, and I wish to learn your intention

concerning them."

"I--In truth--I--" haltingly began Sir Frederick, his

face losing colour as he spoke. "I have had the devil's turn

of luck of late, and--and I am not in a position to take them

up at the moment. I trust that you'll give me time, and not

press me too harshly."

With a smile that expressed irony qualified by enjoyment,

the creditor replied: "'T is a pleasure to aid a man to whom

I am indebted for so much courtesy."

Sir Frederick's ashen hue changed to a ruddy one, as he

said: "Lord Clowes, 't is a bitter mouthful for a man to eat,

but I ask your clemency till my luck changes, for change it

must, since cards and dice cannot always run against one.

I know I deserve it not at your hands, after what has

passed--"

"Cease your stuttering, man," ordered the commissary.

"Had I revenge in my heart I'd have sent the bailiff not

come myself. The bills shall wait your convenience, and all

I ask for the lenience is that ye dine with me and do me one

service. Ye did me a bad stroke with Miss Meredith; now

I ask ye to offset it by telling her what my vengeance has

been."

Mobray hesitated. "Lord Clowes, I will do nothing to

trick Miss Meredith, desperately placed as I am."

"Chut! Who talks of trickery? Ye told her the facts of

my parole; therefore ye owe it to me, even though it may not

serve your own suit, to tell her as well what is in my favour."

"And so help you to win her. I cannot do her that wrong,

my Lord."

"Is it worse to tell her only the truth about me than to

seek to persuade her into a marriage with a bankrupt?"

"You state it unsparingly."

"Not more so, I doubt not, than ye did the matter of my

parole--which some day I shall be able to justify, and the

gentlemen of the army will then sing a very altered tune--

with this difference, that I say it to your face and ye did

not."

With bowed head Sir Frederick answered: "You are right,

my Lord, and I will say what I can in your favour to Miss

Meredith."

"Spoke like an honest man. Fare ye well till next Wednesday,

when I shall look for ye to a three-o'clock dinner."

Whatever pain and shame the words cost him, honourably

the baronet fulfilled his promise by going to the commissary's

quarters the following day and telling Janice the facts. The

girl listened to his explanation with a face grave almost to

sadness. "I--What you have told me, Sir Frederick,"

she said gently at the end, "is of much importance to me just

at this time, and I thank you."

"I know, I know," groaned the young officer, miserably,

"and 't is only part of my horrible run of luck that I

should--that--ah--Take him, Miss Meredith, and end

my torture."

"Can you advise me to marry Lord Clowes?"

"After his generosity to me, in honour I must say nothing

against him, but 't is asking too much of human nature for me

to aid his suit."

"I--oh, I know not what to do!" despairingly wailed the

girl. "Mommy says 't is for me to decide, and dadda thinks

I cannot do better, and to the ear it seems indeed the only

thing to do. Yet I shudder every time I think of it, and

twice, when I have dreamed that I was his wife, I have waked

the whole house with my screams to be saved from him."

"Miss Meredith," burst out the baronet, "give me the right

to save you. You know I love you to desperation; that I

would live to make you--"

"Ah, pray, Sir Frederick," begged Janice, "do not add to

my pain and difficulty. What you wish--"

"I crave a pardon for my words. 'T was a moment's selfish

forgetfulness of you and of my own position, that shall not

occur again." Mobray stooped and kissed a loose end of the

handkerchief the girl held, and hurried from the room.

As he was catching up his cloak and sabre in the hallway,

the door of the office opened. "Come in here a moment,

Sir Frederick," requested the commissary.

"I have done as I promised, and that is all I can do at the

moment," almost sobbed the young fellow. "Nor will I dine

here Wednesday, though you do your worst."

"Tush! Do as ye please as to that, but come in here now,

for I have a thing to say that concerns Miss Meredith's

happiness."

"And what is that?" demanded the baronet, as he

entered.

"I see by the G. O. that ye are named one of the commissioners

to arrange a cartel of exchange with the rebels at

Germantown to-day."

"Would to God it were to arrange a battle in which I

might fall!"

"'T is likely lists of prisoners will be shown, and should ye

chance to see the name of Leftenant Hennion on any of those

handed in by the rebels I recommend that ye do not advertise

the fact when ye return to Philadelphia."

"But the fellow's dead."

"Ye have been long enough in the service to know that

some die whose names never get on any return, and so some

are reported dead who decline to be buried. Let us not beat

about the bush as to what I mean. We are each doing our

best to obtain possession of this lovely creature, but the father

holds to his promise to the long-legged noodle, and, if he

is alive, our suits are hopeless. So let them continue to

suppose him--"

"Mine is so already," groaned Mobray. "But if 't were

not, I would not filch a woman's love by means of a deceit.

Nor--"

"Fudge! Hear me through. The girl has always hated

the match, which was one of her old fool of a father's conceiving,

and will thank any one who saves her from the fellow.

Let her say nay to us both, and it please her, but don't force

her to a marriage of compulsion by needless blabbing."

"I will hold my peace, if that seems best for Miss Meredith;

not otherwise, my Lord," answered Mobray, flinging from the

room.

The baronet mounted his horse, and, stabbing his spurs into

him, galloped madly down Market Street, and then up Second

Street to where it forked into two country roads. Here the

lines of British fortifications intersected it, and a picket of

cavalry forced the rider to draw rein and show his pass. This

done, he rode on, though at a more easy pace, and an hour

later entered the village of Germantown. In front of the

Roebuck Inn a guidon, from which depended a white flag,

had been thrust into the ground, and grouped about the door

of the tavern was a small party of Continental light horse.

Trotting up to them, Mobray dismounted, and, after an inquiry

and a request to one of them to take his horse, he

entered the public room. To its one occupant, who was

seated before the fire, he said: "The dragoons outside told

me the reb--the Continental commissioners were here.

Canst tell me where they are to be found, fellow?"

The person addressed rose from his seat, revealing clothes

so soiled and tattered, and a pair of long boots of such shabby

appearance, as to give him the semblance of some runaway

prentice or bond-servant, but over his shoulder passed a green

ribbon and sword sash which marked their wearer as a field

officer; and as the baronet realised this he removed his hat

and bowed.

"Since when did you take to calling your superior officers

'fellows,' Sir Frederick?" asked the other, laughing.

With a cry of recognition, Mobray sprang forward, his hand

outstretched. "Charlie!" he exclaimed. "Heavens, man,

we have made a joke in the army of the appearance of thy

troops, but I never thought to see the exquisite of the Mall

in clothes not fit for a tinker."

"My name, Fred, is John Brereton," corrected the officer,

"which is a change for the better, I think you will own. As

for my clothes, I'll better them, too, if Congress ever gives us

enough pay to do more than keep life in us. Owing to depreciation,

a leftenant-colonel is allowed to starve at present

on the equivalent of twenty-five dollars, specie, a month."

"And yet you go on serving such masters," burst out

Mobray. "Come over to us, Charl--John. Sir William

would give you--"

"Enough," interrupted Brereton, angrily. "For how long,

Sir Frederick, have you deemed me capable of treachery?"

"'T is no treachery to leave this unnatural rebellion and

take sides with our good king."

"Such talk is idle, and you should know it, Mobray. A

word with you ere Grayson and Boudinot--who have gone

to look at that marplot house of Cliveden which frustrated all

our hopes four months since--return and interrupt us. I

last saw you at the Merediths'; can you give me word of

them?"

"Only ill ones, alas!" answered the captain. "Their

necessities are such that I fear me they are on the point of

giving their daughter to that unutterable scoundrel, Clowes."

Jack started as if he had been stung. "You cannot mean

that, man! We sent you word he had broke his parole."

"Ay," replied the baronet, flushing. "And let me tell you,

John, that scarce an officer failed to go to Sir William and

beg him to send the cur back to you."

"And you mean that Mr. Meredith can seriously intend to

give Miss Janice to such a creature?"

"I fear 't is as good as decided. You know the man, and

how he gets his way, curse him!"

"I'd do more than that, could I but get into Philadelphia,"

declared Jack, hotly. "By heavens, Fred--"

But here the entrance of other officers interrupted them,

and Colonel Brereton was set to introducing Boudinot and

Grayson to the British officer.

Scarcely had they been made known to each other when

Mobray's fellow-commissioners, Colonel O'Hara and Colonel

Stevens, with a detail of dragoons, came trotting up; and so

soon as credentials were exchanged the six sat down about a

table in a private room to discuss the matter which had

brought them together. One of the first acts of Mobray was

to ask for a look at the Continental lists of prisoners; and

after a hurried glance through them, he turned and said to

Brereton in a low voice: "We had word in Philadelphia that

Leftenant Hennion died of a fever."

"'T is a false rumour," replied Brereton. "If I could I'd

see that he failed of an exchange till the end of the war; and

I would that one of our officers in your hands could be kept

by you for an equal term."

"Who is that?" asked Mobray.

"That rascal, Charles Lee," muttered Brereton. "But,

though he openly schemed against General Washington, and

sought to supersede him, his Excellency is above resentment,

and has instructed us to obtain his exchange among the first."

In the arrangement of details of the cartel Brereton showed

himself curiously variable, at times sitting completely abstracted

from what was being discussed, and then suddenly entering

into the discussions, only to compel an entire going over of

points already deemed settled, and raising difficulties which

involved much waste of time.

"Confound it!" said O'Hara presently, after a glance at

his watch. "At this rate we shall have to take a second day

to it."

"Beyond question," assented Jack, with a suggestion of

eagerness. "Gentlemen, I invite you to dinner, and there

are good sleeping-rooms above."

"'T is out of the question," replied Stevens. "We officers

give a masked ball in the city to-night, and I am one of the

managers."