young
daughter spent a week in our home in Philadelphia on their first trip
to the colonies. Later Mrs. Hare wrote to my mother of their terrible
adventure in the great north bush and spoke of Margaret's attachment
for the handsome boy who had helped to rescue them, so I have some
right to my interest in you."

"And therefor I thank you and congratulate myself," said the young man.
"It is a little world after all."

"And your story has been big enough to fill it," she went on. "The
ladies in Philadelphia seem to know all its details. We knew only how
it began. They have told us of the thrilling duel and how the young
lovers were separated by the war and how you were sent out of England."

"You astonish me," said the officer. "I did not imagine that my humble
affairs would interest any one but myself and my family. I suppose
that Doctor Franklin must have been talking about them. The dear old
soul is the only outsider who knows the facts."

"And if he had kept them to himself he would have been the most inhuman
wretch in the world," said Mrs. Arnold. "Women have their rights.
They need something better to talk about than Acts of Parliament and
taxes and war campaigns. I thank God that no man can keep such a story
to himself. He has to have some one to help him enjoy it. A good
love-story is like murder. It will out."

"It has caused me a lot of misery and a lot of happiness," said the
young man.

"I long to see the end of it," the woman went on. "I happen to know a
detail in your story which may be new to you. Miss Hare is now in New
York."

"In New York!"

"Oddso! In New York! We heard in Philadelphia that she and her mother
had sailed with Sir Roger Waite in March. How jolly it would be if the
General and I could bring you together and have a wedding at
headquarters!"

"I could think of no greater happiness save that of seeing the end of
the war," Jack answered.

"The war! That is a little matter. I want to see a proper end to this
love-story."

She laughed and ran to the spinnet and sang _Shepherds, I Have Lost My
Love_.

The General would seem to have been in bad spirits. He had spoken not
half a dozen words. To him the talk of the others had been as spilled
water. Jack has described him as a man of "unstable temperament."

The young man's visit was interrupted by Solomon who came to tell him
that he was needed in the matter of a quarrel between some of the new
recruits.

J