o her knees! That is the
truth!"

He said politely: "You are intensely interested in--er--colonial and
revolutionary history."

"Yes. What else have I to think of--here?"

"I suppose many interesting memories of those times cluster around this
old place," he said, violently stifling a yawn. He had risen early and
run far. Hunger and slumber contended for his mastery.

"Many," she said simply. "Just by the gate yonder they captured young
Alsop Hunt and sent him away to the Provost Prison in New York. In the
road below John Buckhout, one of our dragoons, was trying to get away
from one of Tarleton's dragoons of the 17th Regiment; and the British
trooper shouted, 'Surrender, you damned rebel, or I'll blow your brains
out!' and the next moment he fired a bullet through Buckhout's helmet.
'There,' said the dragoon, 'you damned rebel, a little more and I should
have blown your brains out!' 'Yes, damn you,' replied John, 'and a little
more and you wouldn't have touched me!'"

Brown looked at her amused and astonished to hear such free words slip so
eagerly from a mouth which, as he looked at it, seemed to him the sweet
mouth of a child.

"Where did _you_ ever hear such details?" he asked.

"People told me. Besides, the house is full of New York newspapers. You
may read them if you wish. I often do. Many details of the fight are
there."

"Reading such things out of old newspapers published at the time
certainly must bring those events very vividly before you."

"Yes. . . . It is painful, too. The surprise and rout of Sheldon's 2nd
dragoons--the loss of their standard; the capture, wounding, and death of
more than two score--and--oh! that young death there in the wheat! the
boy lying in the sun with one arm across his face and the broken pistol
in his hand! and his wife--the wife of a month--dragging him back to this
house--with the sunset light on his dead face!"

"To _this_ house?"

She dropped her hand lightly on his shoulder and pointed.

"Tarleton's troopers came stamping and cursing in by that very door after
they had burned Judge Lockwood's and the meeting house--but they left her
alone with her dead, here on the floor where you and I are standing. . .
. She was only seventeen; she died a few months later in child-birth.
God dealt very gently with her."

He looked around him in the pleasant light of the room, striving to
comprehend that such things had happened in such a sleepy, peaceful
place. Sunlight f