from Sir
Henry Clinton yesterday (it is an eight days' pass, Clarissa) I found
that Captain Yorke goes to-morrow to the neutral ground to inspect
troops, and I think I shall take advantage of his company."

"I am glad of that," said Clarissa, putting her slender hand in Gulian's
and looking with grateful eyes up at him, as he stood beside her chair.
"Is he the aide-de-camp you told me of, Gulian, for whom you had taken a
liking?"

"The same; a fine, manly fellow, the second son of Lord Herbert Yorke,
one of my father's old friends in England. You were dancing with him at
the De Lanceys' 'small and early,' were you not, Kitty, last week?"

"Yes," said Kitty, with a quick nod and a half frown, "he has the usual
airs and graces of a newly arrived officer from the mother-country."

"Perhaps you find the colonists more to your mind," responded Gulian
somewhat severely; but Clarissa gave his sleeve a warning twitch, as
Kitty made answer with heightened color:--

"My own countrymen are ever first with me, as you know full well,
Gulian, but one must dance sometimes to keep up one's heart in those
times, and Captain Yorke has a passably good step which suits with
mine."

What Gulian would have replied to this was never known, for at that
moment an outcry arose in the hall, followed by the bump, bump of some
heavy body rolling down the staircase, and Peter's boyish voice shouting
out, between gasps of laughter,--

"Pompey, Pompey, I say!--it's nobody but me; oh, what a proper old goose
it is; do, somebody come and thrash him."

In a second Gulian and Kitty were outside the door, and beheld at the
foot of the winding stairs poor Pompey, picking himself up, with many
groans and much rubbing of his shins, while Peter, rolling himself
nearly double with laughter, stood midway of the flight, with a queer
object in his hand which Gulian seized hastily.

"It's only a gourd," gasped Peter between paroxysms. "I kept it in my
closet for a week, and half an hour ago I stole a bit of wick out of
Dinah's pantry and dipped it well in melted tallow, and than stuck it
inside, when, as you see, having carved out two eyes and a slit for the
nose, it looks somewhat ghastly when the light comes forth."

"It's a debbil, debbil," cried Pompey. "Massa Peter sent me to find his
skates, and dat awful face"--Pompey's teeth chattered, and Peter went
off in a fresh burst of laughter.

"It soured him properly, Uncle Gulian; and though I ran afte