it. Your mother writes well, George. I
suppose you and she had a difference?" said George's aunt, not unkindly.

"Yes, ma'am, many," answered the young man, sadly. "The last was about
a question of money--of ransom which I promised to the old lieutenant of
the fort who aided me to make my escape. I told you he had a mistress, a
poor Indian woman, who helped me, and was kind to me. Six weeks after my
arrival at home, the poor thing made her appearance at Richmond, having
found her way through the wood by pretty much the same track which I had
followed, and bringing me the token which Museau had promised to send me
when he connived to my flight. A commanding officer and a considerable
reinforcement had arrived at Duquesne. Charges, I don't know of what
peculation (for his messenger could not express herself very clearly),
had been brought against this Museau. He had been put under arrest, and
had tried to escape; but, less fortunate than myself, he had been
shot on the rampart, and he sent the Indian woman to me, with my
grandfather's watch, and a line scrawled in his prison on his deathbed,
begging me to send ce que je scavais to a notary at Havre de Grace in
France to be transmitted to his relatives at Caen in Normandy. My friend
Silverheels, the hunter, had helped my poor Indian on her way. I don't
know how she would have escaped scalping else. But at home they received
the poor thing sternly. They hardly gave her a welcome. I won't say
what suspicions they had regarding her and me. The poor wretch fell to
drinking whenever she could find means. I ordered that she should have
food and shelter, and she became the jest of our negroes, and formed the
subject of the scandal and tittle-tattle of the old fools in our little
town. Our Governor was, luckily, a man of sense, and I made interest
with him, and procured a pass to send her back to her people. Her very
grief at parting with me only served to confirm the suspicions against
her. A fellow preached against me from the pulpit, I believe; I had
to treat another with a cane. And I had a violent dispute with Madam
Esmond--a difference which is not healed yet--because I insisted upon
paying to the heirs Museau pointed out the money I had promised for
my deliverance. You see that scandal flourishes at the borders of the
wilderness, and in the New World as well as the Old."

"I have suffered from it myself, my dear!" said Madame Bernstein,
demurely. "Fill thy glass, child! A l