pipe-smoke dreadfully--so much, indeed,
that I had even thought to try Sir Peter's snuff to soothe me."

"Shall I fetch it, madam?" I asked instantly; but she raised a small
hand in laughing horror.

"Snuff and picquet I am preparing for--a youth of folly--an old age of
snuff and cards, you know. At present folly suffices, thank you."

And as I stood smiling before her, she said: "Pray you be seated, sir,
if you so desire. There should be sufficient air for two in this
half-charred furnace which you call New York. Tell me, Mr. Renault, are
the winters here also extreme in cold?"

"Sometimes," I said. "Last winter the bay was frozen to Staten Island
so that the artillery crossed on the ice from the city."

She turned her head, looking out over the water, which was now all a
golden sparkle under the westering sun. Then her eyes dropped to the
burned district--that waste of blackened ruins stretching south along
Broadway to Beaver Street and west to Greenwich Street.

"Is that the work of rebels?" she asked, frowning.

"No, madam; it was an accident."

"Why do the New Yorkers not rebuild?"

"I think it is because General Washington interrupts local
improvements," I said, laughing.

She looked around at me, pretty brows raised in quaint displeasure.

"Does the insolence of a rebel really amuse you, Mr. Renault?"

I was taken aback. Even among the British officers here in the city it
had become the fashion to speak respectfully of the enemy, and above
all of his Excellency.

"Why should it not amuse me?" I asked lightly.

She had moved her head again, and appeared to be absorbed in the view.
Presently she said, still looking out over the city: "That was a noble
church once, that blackened arch across the way."

"That is Trinity--all that is left of it," I said. "St. Paul's is still
standing--you may see it there to the north, just west of Ann Street
and below Vesey."

She turned, leaning on the railing, following with curious eyes the
direction of my outstretched arm.

"Please tell me more about this furnace you call a city, Mr. Renault,"
she said, with a pretty inflection of voice that flattered; and so I
went over beside her, and, leaning there on the cupola rail together,
we explored the damaged city from our bird's perch above it--the city
that I had come to care for strangely, nay, to love almost as I loved
my Mohawk hills. For it is that way with New York, the one city that we
may love without dis