l
the chances of this rude war, and undertaken this long and toilsome
journey, to vindicate a rebel charged with a most heinous device of
perfidy? It is a deep and painful interest that could move you to this
enterprise."

"My lord, my mission requires a frank confidence. I have heard my father
say you had a generous and feeling heart--that you were a man to whom
the king had most wisely committed his cause in this most trying war:
that your soul was gifted with moderation, wisdom, forecast,
firmness--and that such a spirit as yours was fit to master and command
the rude natures of soldiers, and to compel them to walk in the paths of
justice and mercy. All this and more have I heard my father say, and
this encouraged me to seek you in your camp, and to tell you the plain
and undisguised truth touching those charges against Major Butler. As
Heaven above hears me, I have said nothing but the simple truth. Arthur
Butler never dreamt of harm to my dear father."

"He is a brave soldier," said Henry, "and if your lordship would give
him a chance, and put him before the man who invented the lie, he would
make the scoundrel eat his words, and they should be handed to him on
the major's sword-point."

"The gentleman is happy" said the chief, "in two such zealous friends.
You have not answered me--is your father aware of this visit, Miss
Lindsay?"

"He is ignorant even of the nature of the charge against Arthur Butler,"
replied the lady. "He was absent from the Dove Cote when the news
arrived; and, fearing that delay might be disastrous, we took the matter
in hand ourselves."

"You might have written."

"The subject, so please your lordship, was too near to our hearts to put
it to the hazard of a letter."

"It is a warm zeal, and deserves to be requited with a life's devotion,"
said Cornwallis. "You insinuated, young sir, just now, that you
suspected the author of this imputed slander."

"My brother is rash, and speaks hastily," interrupted Mildred.

"Whom were you about to name?" asked the general, of Henry.

"There was a man named Tyrrel," replied the youth, "that has been
whispering in my father's ear somewhat concerning a proposal for my
sister" (here Mildred cast a keen glance at her brother and bit her lip)
"and they say, love sometimes makes men desperate, and I took a passing
notion that, may be, he might have been at the bottom of it; I know
nothing positively to make me think so, but only speak from what I