structs me to allow him to have a private audience with you--if YOU
so wish it."

With a woman's swift and too often hopeless intuition, Thankful knew
that this was not the sole contents of the letter, and that her
relations with Capt. Brewster were known to the man before her. But she
drew herself up a little proudly, and, turning her truthful eyes upon
the major, said, "I DO so wish it."

"It shall be done as you desire, Mistress Blossom," returned the
officer with cold politeness, as he turned upon his heel.

"One moment, Major Van Zandt," said Thankful swiftly.

The major turned quickly; but Thankful's eyes were gazing thoughtfully
forward, and scarcely glanced at him. "I would prefer," she said
timidly and hesitatingly, "that this interview should not take place
under the roof where--where--where--my father lives. Half-way down the
meadow there is a barn, and before it a broken part of the wall,
fronting on a sycamore-tree. HE will know where it is. Tell him I
will see him there in half an hour."

A smile, which the major had tried to make a careless one, curled his
lip satirically as he bowed in reply. "It is the first time," he said
dryly, "that I believe I have been honored with arranging a tryst for
two lovers; but believe me, Mistress Thankful, I will do my best. In
half an hour I will turn my prisoner over to you."

In half an hour the punctual Mistress Thankful, with a hood hiding her
pale face, passed the officer in the hall, on the way to her
rendezvous. An hour later Caesar came with a message that Mistress
Thankful would like to see him. When the major entered the
sitting-room, he was shocked to find her lying pale and motionless on
the sofa; but as the door closed she rose to her feet, and confronted
him.

"I do not know," she said slowly, "whether you are aware that the man I
just now parted from was for a twelvemonth past my sweetheart, and that
I believed I loved him, and KNEW I was true to him. If you have not
heard it, I tell you now, for the time will come when you will hear
part of it from the lips of others, and I would rather you should take
the whole truth from mine. This man was false to me. He betrayed two
friends of mine as spies. I could have forgiven it, had it been only
foolish jealousy; but it was, I have since learned from his own lips,
only that he might gratify his spite against the commander-in-chief by
procuring their arrest, and making a serious difficulty in t