to accept, after their night
march.

"Gentlemen," said Nancy, as they sat or stood around drinking their hot
coffee, "I suppose you have no desire to retain our afflicted friend a
prisoner? The doctor, who is with him at present, thinks it might
benefit him to be removed to the country. I spoke to my friend whom I
saw this morning, and he promised to send a coach. May he depart
peaceably when the coach comes?"

"Faith," said the young Irish officer, "he may depart. He shall not be
molested. I command here at present."

"What is the matter with the invalid?" inquired another officer.

"He appeareth to have the dropsy," answered Nancy, gravely.

In about half an hour an old-fashioned coach, as large as a small
dwelling-house, and raised high from the ground on great wheels,
lumbered up to the door. The steps were let down, or unfolded, until
they made a kind of step-ladder, by which the passenger ascended to the
coach which loomed above. The door stuck, in consequence of being
swelled by the late rains, and was with difficulty opened. The officers
stood around, waiting the appearance of the invalid, and the young
Irishman who had been Nancy's escort waited at the door to help her in,
for she was to accompany her afflicted relative to the ferry.

The house door opened, and she appeared, bearing a pillow and blanket to
make the sick man comfortable. She arranged these, and stepped back into
the house to see him moved. Then, with a shuffling of feet, the
pretended victim of dropsy appeared, dressed in plain clothes, and so
enormously puffed out that there was scarcely room for him in the
passageway. The so-called doctor, dressed in black, and wearing a pair
of black glass spectacles, assisted the invalid on one side, and Nancy
supported him on the other. The dropsical one groaned at every step, and
groaned louder than ever as they pushed, squeezed, and crowded him up
the steps and into the coach. Nancy and the doctor followed, and the
Irish officer put up the steps and clapped to the door, while Nancy
smiled a farewell through the window to him as the great coach rumbled
away toward the Christiana River.

"Oddzooks!" exclaimed one of the officers, "that is the fattest Quaker I
ever saw."

He would have been surprised if he had seen the fat Quaker draw a stout
pillow from under his waistcoat after the coach had moved away, while
the doctor stripped some black court-plaster from the back of his
spectacles, and inste