l of
experience, but he is a humourist; and what is something, though you
will pardon it, he is not an American born."

"It is quite right to consult such considerations, Beekman; were I in
congress, they would influence _me_, Englishman as I am, and in
many things must always remain."

"I am glad to hear you say that, Willoughby," exclaimed the chaplain--"
right down rejoiced to hear you say so! A man is bound to stand by his
birth-place, through thick and thin."

"How do you, then, reconcile your opinions, in this matter, to _your_
birth-place, Woods?" asked the laughing captain.

To own the truth, the chaplain was a little confused. He had entered
into the controversy with so much zeal, of late, as to have imbibed the
feelings of a thorough partisan; and, as is usual, with such
philosophers, was beginning to overlook everything that made against
his opinions, and to exaggerate everything that sustained them.

"How?"--he cried, with zeal, if not with consistency--"Why, well
enough. I am an Englishman too, in the general view of the case, though
born in Massachusetts. Of English descent, and an English subject."

"Umph!--Then Beekman, here, who is of Dutch descent, is not bound by
the same principles as we are ourselves?"

"Not by the same _feelings_ possibly; but, surely, by the same
principles. Colonel Beekman is an Englishman by construction, and you
are by birth. Yes, I'm what may be called a _constructive_
Englishman."

Even Mrs. Willoughby and Beulah laughed at this, though not a smile had
crossed Maud's face, since her eye had lost Robert Willoughby from
view. The captain's ideas seemed to take a new direction, and he was
silent some little time before he spoke.

"Under the circumstances in which we are now placed, as respects each
other, Mr. Beekman," he said, "it is proper that there should be no
concealments on grave points. Had you arrived an hour or two earlier,
you would have met a face well known to you, in that of my son, major
Willoughby."

"Major Willoughby, my dear sir!" exclaimed Beekman, with a start of
unpleasant surprise; "I had supposed him with the royal army, in
Boston. You say he has left the Knoll--I sincerely hope not for
Albany."

"No--I wished him to go in that direction, at first, and to see you, in
particular; but his representations of the state of the country induced
me to change my mind; he travels by a private way, avoiding all the
towns of note, or size."

"In that