ter[15] on the Tiger River."[16]

[Footnote 14: a British colonel.]

[Footnote 15: an American general; also spelled Sumter.]

[Footnote 16: a branch of the Broad, which is a branch of
the Congaree River, South Carolina.]

"Indeed!" cried the exulting Sarah; "Sumpter--Sumpter--who is he? I'll
not buy even a pin until you tell me all the news," she continued,
laughing and throwing down a muslin she had been examining.

For a moment the peddler hesitated; his eye glanced toward Harper, who
was yet gazing at him with settled meaning, and the whole manner of
Birch was altered. Approaching the fire, he took from his mouth a
large allowance of the Virginian weed, and depositing it, with its
juices, without mercy to Miss Peyton's andirons,[17] he returned to
his goods.

[Footnote 17: irons for supporting wood in a fire-place.]

"He lives among the colored people in the south, and he has lately had
a scrimmage with this Colonel Tarleton"--

"Who defeated him, of course?" cried Sarah, with confidence.

"So say the troops at Morrisania."[18]

[Footnote 18: a village in Westchester County, north of the
Harlem River.]

"But what do _you_ say?" Mr. Wharton ventured to inquire, yet speaking
in a low tone.

"I repeat but what I hear," said Birch, offering a piece of cloth to
the inspection of Sarah, who rejected it in silence, evidently
determined to hear more before she made another purchase.

"They say, however, at the Plains,"[19] the peddler continued, first
throwing his eyes again around the room and letting them rest for an
instant on Harper, "that Sumpter and one or two more were all that
were hurt, and that the rig'lars[20] were all cut to pieces, for the
militia were fixed snugly in a log barn."

[Footnote 19: White Plains.]

[Footnote 20: regular troops, British.]

"Not very probable," said Sarah, contemptuously,[21] "though I make no
doubt the rebels got behind the logs."

[Footnote 21: with scorn.]

"I think," said the peddler, coolly, again offering the silk, "it's
quite ingenious to get a log between one and a gun, instead of getting
between a gun and a log."

The eyes of Harper dropped quietly on the pages of the volume in his
hand, while Frances, rising, came forward with a smile on her face, as
she inquired, in a tone of affability[22] that the peddler had never
witnessed from the younger sister:

[Footnote 22: readiness to converse.]