hers whom
she has much affected. It has in some sort soured her."

Mr. Blossom would have recalled this speech as soon as it escaped him,
lest it should lead to a revelation from the truthful Mistress Thankful
of her relations with the Continental captain. But to his
astonishment, and, I may add, to my own, she showed nothing of that
disposition she had exhibited a few moments before. On the contrary,
she blushed slightly, and said nothing.

And then the conversation changed,--upon the weather, the hard winter,
the prospects of the Cause, a criticism upon the commander-in-chief's
management of affairs, the attitude of Congress, etc., between Mr.
Blossom and the count; characterized, I hardly need say, by that
positiveness of opinion that distinguishes the unprofessional. In
another part of the room, it so chanced that Mistress Thankful and the
baron were talking about themselves; the assembly balls; who was the
prettiest woman in Morristown; and whether Gen. Washington's attentions
to Mistress Pyne were only perfunctory gallantry, or what; and if Lady
Washington's hair was really gray; and if that young aide-de-camp,
Major Van Zandt were really in love with Lady or whether his attentions
were only the zeal of a subaltern,--in the midst of which a sudden gust
of wind shook the house; and Mr. Blossom, going to the front door, came
back with the announcement that it was snowing heavily.

And indeed, within that past hour, to their astonished eyes the whole
face of nature had changed. The moon was gone, the sky hidden in a
blinding, whirling swarm of stinging flakes. The wind, bitter and
strong, had already fashioned white feathery drifts upon the threshold,
over the painted benches on the porch, and against the door-posts.

Mistress Thankful and the baron had walked to the rear door--the baron
with a slight tropical shudder--to view this meteorological change. As
Mistress Thankful looked over the snowy landscape, it seemed to her
that all record of her past experience had been effaced: her very
footprints of an hour before were lost; the gray wall on which she
leaned was white and spotless now; even the familiar farm-shed looked
dim and strange and ghostly. Had she been there? had she seen the
captain? was it all a fancy? She scarcely knew.

A sudden gust of wind closed the door behind them with a crash, and
sent Mistress Thankful, with a slight feminine scream, forward into the
outer darkness. But the baron