r waved over
the old stone house.

Attracted by the noise, and wondering what fresh mischief they were
doing, Mrs. Jeffrey went out into the yard just in time to see the
flag of freedom as it shook itself out in the summer breeze.

"Heaven help me!" she ejaculated; "the 'Stars and Stripes' on Madam
Conway's house!" and, resolutely shutting her eyes, lest they should
look again on what to her seemed sacrilege, she groped her way back
to the house; and, retiring to her room, wrote to Madam Conway an
exaggerated account of the proceedings, bidding her hasten home or
everything would be ruined.

The letter being written, the good lady felt better--so much better,
indeed, that after an hour's deliberation she concluded not to send
it, inasmuch as it contained many complaints against the young lady
Margaret, who she knew was sure in the end to find favor in her
grandmother's eyes. This was the first time Mrs. Jeffrey had
attempted a letter to her employer, for Maggie had been the chosen
correspondent, Theo affecting to dislike anything like letter-writing.
On the day previous to Henry Warner's arrival at the stone house
Maggie had written to her grandmother, and ere the time came for her
to write again she had concluded to keep his presence there a secret:
so Madam Conway was, as yet, ignorant of his existence; and while
in the homes of the English nobility she bore herself like a royal
duchess, talking to young Arthur Carrollton of her beautiful
granddaughter, she little dreamed of the real state of affairs at
home.

But it was not for Mrs. Jeffrey to enlighten her, and tearing her
letter in pieces the governess sat down in her easy-chair by the
window, mentally congratulating herself upon the fact that "the two
young savages," as she styled Douglas and Warner, were to leave on the
morrow. This last act of theirs, the hoisting of the banner, had been
the culminating point; and, too indignant to sit with them at the same
table, she resolutely kept her room throughout the entire day, poring
intently over Baxter's "Saints' Rest," her favorite volume when at all
flurried or excited. Occasionally, too, she would stop her ears with
jeweler's cotton, to shut out the sound of "Hail, Columbia!" as it
came up to her from the parlor below, where the young men were doing
their best to show their patriotism.

Towards evening, alarmed by a whizzing sound, which seemed to be often
repeated, and wishing to know the cause, she stole h