is shameful, so it is; there! 'tis most
scandalous, so it is: there, now! Spies, indeed! what are THEY, pray?"

In the indignation which the recollection of her wrongs had slowly
gathered in her, from the beginning of this speech, she had advanced
her face, rosy with courage, and beautiful in its impertinence, within
a few inches of the dignified features and quiet gray eyes of the great
commander. To her utter stupefaction, he bent his head and kissed her,
with a grave benignity, full on the centre of her audacious forehead.

"Be seated, I beg, Mistress Blossom," he said, taking her cold hand in
his, and quietly replacing her in the unoccupied chair. "Be seated, I
beg, and give me, if you can, your attention for a moment. The officer
intrusted with the ungracious task of occupying your father's house is
a member of my military family, and a gentleman. If he has so far
forgotten himself--if he has so far disgraced himself and me as--"

"No! no!" uttered Thankful, with feverish alacrity, "the gentleman was
most considerate. On the contrary--mayhap--I"--she hesitated, and then
came to a full stop, with a heightened color, as a vivid recollection
of that gentleman's face, with the mark of her riding-whip lying across
it, rose before her.

"I was about to say that Major Van Zandt, as a gentleman, has known how
to fully excuse the natural impulses of a daughter," continued
Washington, with a look of perfect understanding; "but let me now
satisfy you on another point, where it would seem we greatly differ."

He walked to the door, and summoned his servant, to whom he gave an
order. In another moment the fresh-faced young officer who had at
first admitted her re-appeared with a file of official papers. He
glanced slyly at Thankful Blossom's face with an amused look, as if he
had already heard the colloquy between her and his superior officer,
and had appreciated that which neither of the earnest actors in the
scene had themselves felt,--a certain sense of humor in the situation.

Howbeit, standing before them, Col. Hamilton gravely turned over the
file of papers. Thankful bit her lips in embarrassment. A slight
feeling of awe, and a presentiment of some fast-coming shame; a new and
strange consciousness of herself, her surroundings, of the dignity of
the two men before her; an uneasy feeling of the presence of two ladies
who had in some mysterious way entered the room from another door, and
who seemed to be inte