f massacre and torture and
scalps taken from women and children at Cherry Valley?" She raised her
flushed face to mine and looked at me earnestly.

"Why even our own British officers have been disturbed by these
slanders," she said, "and I think Sir Henry Clinton half believes that
our Royal Greens and Rangers are merciless marauders, and that Walter
Butler is a demon incarnate."

"I admit," said I, "that we here in New York have doubted the mercy of
the Butlers and Sir John Johnson."

"Then let me paint these gentlemen for you," she said quickly.

"But they say these gentlemen are capable of painting themselves," I
observed, tempted to excite her by the hint that the Rangers smeared
their faces like painted Iroquois at their hellish work.

"Oh, how shameful!" she cried, with a little gesture of horror. "What
do you think us, there in Canada? Because our officers must needs hold
a wilderness for the King, do you of New York believe us savages?"

The generous animation, the quick color, charmed me. She was no longer
English, she was Canadienne--jealous of Canadian reputation, quick to
resent, sensitive, proud--heart and soul believing in the honor of her
own people of the north.

"Let me picture for you these gentlemen whom the rebels cry out upon,"
she said. "Sir John Johnson is a mild, slow man, somewhat sluggish and
overheavy, moderate in speech, almost cold, perhaps, yet a perfectly
gallant officer."

"His father was a wise and honest gentleman before him," I said
sincerely. "Is his son, Sir John, like him?"

She nodded, and went on to deal with old John Butler--nor did I stay
her to confess that these Johnsons and Butlers were no strangers to me,
whose blackened Broadalbin home lay a charred ruin to attest the love
that old John Butler bore my family name.

And so I stood, smiling and silent, while she spoke of Walter Butler,
describing him vividly, even to his amber black eyes and his pale face,
and the poetic melancholy with which he clothed the hidden blood-lust
that smoldered under his smooth pale skin. But there you have
it--young, proud, and melancholy--and he had danced with her at
Niagara, too, and--if I knew him--he had not spared her hints of that
impetuous flame that burned for all pure women deep in the blackened
pit of his own damned soul.

"Did you know his wife?" I asked, smiling.

"Walter Butler's--wife!" she gasped, turning on me, white as death.

There was a silence; she drew a long