"Oh!" cried the captain, gayly, "he yet continues there, as handsome and as gallant as ever."
Although a woman be not actually in love, she seldom hears without a blush the name of a man whom she might love, and who has been connected with herself by idle gossips, in the amatory rumor of the day. Such had been the case with Sarah, and she dropped her eyes on the carpet with a smile, that, aided by the blush which suffused her cheek, in no degree detracted from her native charms.
Captain Wharton, without heeding this display of interest in his sister, immediately continued, "At times he is melancholy-we tell him it must be love." Sarah raised her eyes to the face of her brother, and was consciously turning them on the rest of the party, when she met those of her sister laughing with good humor and high spirits, as she cried, "Poor man! does he despair?"
"Why, no-one would think he could not; the eldest son of a man of wealth, so handsome, and a colonel."
"Strong reasons, indeed, why he should prevail," said Sarah, endeavoring to laugh; "more particularly the latter."
"Let me tell you," replied the captain, gravely, "a lieutenant colonelcy in the Guards is a very pretty thing."
"And Colonel Wellmere a very pretty man," added Frances.
"Nay, Frances," returned her sister, "Colonel Wellmere was never a favorite of yours; he is too loyal to his king to be agreeable to your taste."
Frances quickly answered, "And is not Henry loyal to his king?"
"Come, come," said Miss Peyton, "no difference of opinion about the colonel-he is a favorite of mine."
"f.a.n.n.y likes majors better," cried the brother, pulling her upon his knee.
"Nonsense!" said the blushing girl, as she endeavored to extricate herself from the grasp of her laughing brother.
"It surprises me," continued the captain, "that Peyton, when he procured the release of my father, did not endeavor to detain my sister in the rebel camp."
"That might have endangered his own liberty," said the smiling girl, resuming her seat. "You know it is liberty for which Major Dunwoodie is fighting."
"Liberty!" exclaimed Sarah; "very pretty liberty which exchanges one master for fifty."
"The privilege of changing masters at all is a liberty."
"And one you ladies would sometimes be glad to exercise," cried the captain.
"We like, I believe, to have the liberty of choosing who they shall be in the first place," said the laughing girl. "Don"t we, Aunt Jeanette?"
"Me!" cried Miss Peyton, starting; "what do I know of such things, child? You must ask someone else, if you wish to learn such matters."
"Ah! you would have us think you were never young! But what am I to believe of all the tales I have heard about the handsome Miss Jeanette Peyton?"
"Nonsense, my dear, nonsense," said the aunt, endeavoring to suppress a smile; "it is very silly to believe all you hear."
"Nonsense, do you call it?" cried the captain, gayly. "To this hour General Montrose toasts Miss Peyton; I heard him within the week, at Sir Henry"s table."
"Why, Henry, you are as saucy as your sister; and to break in upon your folly, I must take you to see my new home-made manufactures, which I will be bold enough to put in contrast with the finery of Birch."
The young people rose to follow their aunt, in perfect good humor with each other and the world. On ascending the stairs to the place of deposit for Miss Peyton"s articles of domestic economy, she availed herself, however, of an opportunity to inquire of her nephew, whether General Montrose suffered as much from the gout as he had done when she knew him.
It is a painful discovery we make, as we advance in life, that even those we most love are not exempt from its frailties. When the heart is fresh, and the view of the future unsullied by the blemishes which have been gathered from the experience of the past, our feelings are most holy: we love to identify with the persons of our natural friends all those qualities to which we ourselves aspire, and all those virtues we have been taught to revere. The confidence with which we esteem seems a part of our nature; and there is a purity thrown around the affections which tie us to our kindred that after life can seldom hope to see uninjured. The family of Mr. Wharton continued to enjoy, for the remainder of the day, a happiness to which they had long been strangers; and one that sprang, in its younger members, from the delights of the most confident affection, and the exchange of the most disinterested endearments.
Harper appeared only at the dinner table, and he retired with the cloth, under the pretense of some engagement in his own room. Notwithstanding the confidence created by his manner, the family felt his absence a relief; for the visit of Captain Wharton was necessarily to be confined to a very few days, both from the limitation of his leave of absence, and the danger of a discovery.
All dread of consequences, however, was lost in the pleasure of the meeting. Once or twice during the day, Mr. Wharton had suggested a doubt as to the character of his unknown guest, and the possibility of the detection of his son proceeding in some manner from his information; but the idea was earnestly opposed by all his children; even Sarah uniting with her brother and sister in pleading warmly in favor of the sincerity expressed in the outward appearance of the traveler.
"Such appearances, my children," replied the desponding parent, "are but too often deceitful; when men like Major Andre lend themselves to the purposes of fraud, it is idle to reason from qualities, much less externals."
"Fraud!" cried his son quickly. "Surely, sir, you forget that Major Andre was serving his king, and that the usages of war justified the measure."
"And did not the usages of war justify his death, Henry?" inquired Frances, speaking in a low voice, unwilling to abandon what she thought the cause of her country, and yet unable to suppress her feelings for the man.
"Never!" exclaimed the young man, springing from his seat, and pacing the floor rapidly. "Frances, you shock me; suppose it should be my fate, even now, to fall into the power of the rebels; you would vindicate my execution-perhaps exult in the cruelty of Washington."
"Henry!" said Frances, solemnly, quivering with emotion, and with a face pale as death, "you little know my heart."
"Pardon me, my sister-my little f.a.n.n.y," cried the repentant youth, pressing her to his bosom, and kissing off the tears which had burst, spite of her resolution, from her eyes.
"It is very foolish to regard your hasty words, I know," said Frances, extricating herself from his arms, and raising her yet humid eyes to his face with a smile; "but reproach from those we love is most severe, Henry; particularly-where we-we think-we know"-her paleness gradually gave place to the color of the rose, as she concluded in a low voice, with her eyes directed to the carpet, "we are undeserving of it."
Miss Peyton moved from her own seat to the one next her niece, and, kindly taking her hand, observed, "You should not suffer the impetuosity of your brother to affect you so much; boys, you know, are proverbially ungovernable."
"And, from my conduct, you might add cruel," said the captain, seating himself on the other side of his sister. "But on the subject of the death of Andre we are all of us uncommonly sensitive. You did not know him: he was all that was brave-that was accomplished-that was estimable." Frances smiled faintly, and shook her head, but made no reply. Her brother, observing the marks of incredulity in her countenance, continued, "You doubt it, and justify his death?"
"I do not doubt his worth," replied the maid, mildly, "nor his being deserving of a more happy fate; but I cannot doubt the propriety of Washington"s conduct. I know but little of the customs of war, and wish to know less; but with what hopes of success could the Americans contend, if they yielded all the principles which long usage had established, to the exclusive purposes of the British?"
"Why contend at all?" cried Sarah, impatiently. "Besides, being rebels, all their acts are illegal."
"Women are but mirrors, which reflect the images before them," cried the captain, good-naturedly. "In Frances I see the picture of Major Dunwoodie, and in Sarah-"
"Colonel Wellmere," interrupted the younger sister, laughing, and blushing crimson. "I must confess I am indebted to the major for my reasoning-am I not, Aunt Jeanette?"
"I believe it is something like his logic, indeed, child."
"I plead guilty; and you. Sarah, have not forgotten the learned discussions of Colonel Wellmere."
"I trust I never forget the right," said Sarah, emulating her sister in color, and rising, under the pretense of avoiding the heat of the fire.
Nothing occurred of any moment during the rest of the day; but in the evening Caesar reported that he had overheard voices in the room of Harper, conversing in a low tone. The apartment occupied by the traveler was the wing at the extremity of the building, opposite to the parlor in which the family ordinarily a.s.sembled; and it seems that Caesar had established a regular system of espionage, with a view to the safety of his young master. This intelligence gave some uneasiness to all the members of the family; but the entrance of Harper himself, with the air of benevolence and sincerity which shone through his reserve, soon removed the doubts from the breast of all but Mr. Wharton. His children and sister believed Caesar to have been mistaken, and the evening pa.s.sed off without any additional alarm.
On the afternoon of the succeeding day, the party were a.s.sembled in the parlor around the tea table of Miss Peyton, when a change in the weather occurred. The thin scud, that apparently floated but a short distance above the tops of the hills, began to drive from the west towards the east in astonishing rapidity. The rain yet continued to beat against the eastern windows of the house with fury; in that direction the heavens were dark and gloomy. Frances was gazing at the scene with the desire of youth to escape from the tedium of confinement, when, as if by magic, all was still. The rushing winds had ceased, the pelting of the storm was over, and, springing to the window, with delight pictured in her face, she saw a glorious ray of sunshine lighting the opposite wood. The foliage glittered with the checkered beauties of the October leaf, reflecting back from the moistened boughs the richest l.u.s.ter of an American autumn. In an instant, the piazza, which opened to the south, was thronged with the inmates of the cottage. The air was mild, balmy, and refreshing; in the east, clouds, which might be likened to the retreating ma.s.ses of a discomfited army, hung around the horizon in awful and increasing darkness. At a little elevation above the cottage, the thin vapor was still rushing towards the east with amazing velocity; while in the west the sun had broken forth and shed his parting radiance on the scene below, aided by the fullest richness of a clear atmosphere and a freshened herbage. Such moments belong only to the climate of America, and are enjoyed in a degree proportioned to the suddenness of the contrast, and the pleasure we experience in escaping from the turbulence of the elements to the quiet of a peaceful evening, and an air still as the softest mornings in June.
"What a magnificent scene!" said Harper, in a low tone. "How grand! how awfully sublime!-may such a quiet speedily await the struggle in which my country is engaged, and such a glorious evening follow the day of her adversity!"
Frances, who stood next to him, alone heard the voice. Turning in amazement from the view to the speaker, she saw him standing bareheaded, erect, and with his eyes lifted to heaven. There was no longer the quiet which had seemed their characteristic, but they were lighted into something like enthusiasm, and a slight flush pa.s.sed over his features.
There can be no danger apprehended from such a man, thought Frances; such feelings belong only to the virtuous.
The musings of the party were now interrupted by the sudden appearance of the peddler. He had taken advantage of the first gleam of sunshine to hasten to the cottage. Heedless of wet or dry as it lay in his path, with arms swinging to and fro, and with his head bent forward of his body several inches, Harvey Birch approached the piazza, with a gait peculiarly his own. It was the quick, lengthened pace of an itinerant vender of goods.
"Fine evening," said the peddler, saluting the party, without raising his eyes; "quite warm and agreeable for the season."