er complacently buttoned the compliment over his
chest with the pullets.

"I think you must go now, Allan," she said, looking at him with that
pseudo-maternal air which the youngest of women sometimes assume to
their lovers, as if the doll had suddenly changed sex, and grown to
man's estate. "You must go now, dear; for it may so chance that father
is considering my absence overmuch. You will come again a' Wednesday,
sweetheart; and you will not go to the assemblies, nor visit Mistress
Judith, nor take any girl pick-a-back again on your black horse; and
you will let me know when you are hungry?"

She turned her brown eyes lovingly, yet with a certain pretty trouble
in the brow, and such a searching, pleading inquiry in her glance, that
the captain kissed her at once. Then came the final embrace, performed
by the captain in a half-perfunctory, quiet manner, with a due regard
for the friable nature of part of his provisions. Satisfying himself
of the integrity of the eggs by feeling for them in his pocket, he
waved a military salute with the other hand to Miss Thankful, and was
gone. A few minutes later the sound of his horse's hoofs rang sharply
from the icy hillside.

But, as he reached the summit, two horsemen wheeled suddenly from the
shadow of the roadside, and bade him halt.

"Capt. Brewster, if this moon does not deceive me?" queried the
foremost stranger with grave civility.

"The same. Major Van Zandt, I calculate?" returned Brewster
querulously.

"Your calculation is quite right. I regret Capt. Brewster, that it is
my duty to inform you that you are under arrest."

"By whose orders?"

"The commander-in-chief's."

"For what?"

"Mutinous conduct, and disrespect of your superior officers."

The sword that Capt. Brewster had drawn at the sudden appearance of the
strangers quivered for a moment in his strong hand. Then, sharply
striking it across the pommel of his saddle, he snapped it in twain,
and cast the pieces at the feet of the speaker.

"Go on," he said doggedly.

"Capt. Brewster," said Major Van Zandt, with infinite gravity, "it is
not for me to point out the danger to you of this outspoken emotion,
except practically in its effect upon the rations you have in your
pocket. If I mistake not, they have suffered equally with your steel.
Forward, march!"

Capt. Brewster looked down, and then dropped to the rear, as the
discased yolks of Mistress Thankful's most precious gift slid slowly