Eph would be so mean as to tell tales?" exclaimed Sibyl, in
high indignation.

"Tell tales!" repeated Mr. Merridew, flinging back his head with
irrepressible laughter at Sibyl's ignorance. Why, my dear, the reporting
of important facts, however gained in times of war, is part of war
tactics; it is not called 'telling tales.'"

"And would you--would you, if you were in Ephraim's camp as a
visitor,--would you--"

"Tell tales?" laughed Mr. Merridew. "Indeed I would, if I heard anything
worth telling,--anything that I thought would save the cause I believed
to be a righteous cause." Then, more seriously: "Why, Sibyl, it would be
my duty to do it."

"Oh! oh!" cried Sibyl, "it is odious, odious, all this war business."

"Yes, I grant you that; but who is to blame for bringing this odious
business upon us? Who but these foolish malcontents, these rebels,
like--"

"Like my father and my brother," broke in Sibyl, hotly, as Mr. Merridew
hesitated.

"Yes, like your father and your brother, I am sorry to say," concluded
her uncle, gravely.

"No, no, no!" cried Sibyl, excitedly. "It is not they who are to blame.
They are good and brave and wise. They only want justice and fair play.
It is the King's folk who are to blame,--the King's folk who want to
oppress the people with unjust taxes, that they may live in greater
grandeur."

Mr. Merridew stared in silent astonishment at this unexpected outburst.
Then, in a severer tone than his niece had ever heard from his lips, he
said,--

"So this is the treasonable talk you have heard from your brother; these
are the teachings that he has been instilling into you? Ah, it is none
too soon that you are cut off from the influence of that headstrong
boy."

"But it was my father who instilled these teachings into my brother.
They are his principles, and they are my principles too!"

"Your principles!" and Mr. Merridew, his sense of humor immensely
tickled at the sound of this fine word, that rolled off with such an
assumption of dignity from those rosy young lips, burst into a great
laugh. Yet then and there he said to himself, "That Jackanapes of a boy,
to fill her head with this treasonable stuff! But we'll see, we'll see
if we can't crowd all such stuff out with livelier things when we have
those fine doings at the Province House Sir William is talking of. Her
principles! The little parrot!" and he laughed again.

CHAPTER II.

"And you're to dance the last dance wit