ied the father, "you will keep secret the discovery
which your being in my house has enabled you to make?"

Harper turned quickly to the speaker, and answered mildly, "I have
learned nothing in your family, sir, of which I was ignorant before;
but your son is safer from my knowledge of his visit than he would be
without it."

He bowed to the whole party, and without taking any notice of the
peddler, other than by simply thanking him for his attentions,
mounting his horse, and riding steadily and gracefully through the
little gate, was soon lost behind the hill which sheltered the valley
to the northward.

All the members of the Wharton family laid their heads on their
pillows that night with a foreboding of some interruption to their
ordinary quiet. Uneasiness kept the sisters from enjoying their usual
repose, and they rose from their beds, on the following morning,
unrefreshed and almost without having closed their eyes.

The family were already assembled around the breakfast table when the
captain made his appearance, though the untasted coffee sufficiently
proved that by none of his relatives was his absence disregarded.

"I think I did much better," he cried, taking a chair between his
sisters, and receiving their offered salutes, "to secure a good bed
and such a plentiful breakfast, instead of trusting to the
hospitality[36] of that renowned corps, the Cow-Boys."

[Footnote 36: entertaining guests without pay.]

"If you could sleep," said Sarah, "you were more fortunate than
Frances and myself. Every murmur of the night air sounded to me like
the approach of the rebel army."

"Why," said the captain, laughing, "I do acknowledge a little
inquietude[37] myself. But how was it with you?" turning to his
younger and evidently favorite sister, and tapping her cheek; "did you
see banners in the clouds, and mistake Miss Peyton's AEolian[38] harp
for rebellious music?"

[Footnote 37: disturbed condition of mind.]

[Footnote 38: a stringed instrument that is caused to sound
by the impulse of the air.]

"Nay, Henry," rejoined the maid, "much as I love my country, the
approach of her troops just now would give me great pain."

The brother made no reply; when Caesar exclaimed, with a face that
approached something like the hues of a white man:

"Run, Massa Harry, run--if he love old Caesar, run. Here come a rebel
horse."

"Run!" repeated the British officer, gathering himself up in military