lhelmina, dearest," returned the husband, kissing the
faithful partner of his bosom with strong affection--"very true, my
dear girl; for girl you are and ever will be in my eyes; but _you_
are one in a million, and I humbly trust there are not ten hundred and
one, in every thousand, just like myself. For my part, I wish dear,
saucy, capricious little Maud, no worse luck in a husband, than Luke
Herring."

"She will never be _his_ wife; I know her, and my own sex, too
well to think it. You are wrong, however, Willoughby, in applying such
terms to the child. Maud is not in the least capricious, especially in
her affections. See with what truth and faithfulness of sisterly
attachment she clings to Bob. I do declare I am often ashamed to feel
that even his own mother has less solicitude about him than this dear
girl."

"Pooh, Willy; don't be afflicted with the idea that you don't make
yourself sufficiently miserable about the boy. Bob will do well enough,
and will very likely come out of this affair a lieutenant-colonel. I
may live yet to see him a general officer; certainly, if I live to be
as old as my grandfather, Sir Thomas. As for Maud, she finds Beulah
uneasy about Beekman; and having no husband herself, or any over that
she cares a straw about, why she just falls upon Bob as a _pis
aller_. I'll warrant you she cares no more for him than any of the
rest of us--than myself, for instance; though as an old soldier, I
don't scream every time I fancy a gun fired over yonder at Boston."

"I wish it were well over. It is _so_ unnatural for Evert and
Robert to be on opposite sides."

"Yes, it is out of the common way, I admit; and yet 'twill all come
round, in the long run. This Mr. Washington is a clever fellow, and
seems to play his cards with spirit and judgment. He was with us, in
that awkward affair of Braddock's; and between you and me, Wilhelmina,
he covered the regulars, or we should all have laid our bones on that
accursed field. I wrote you at the time, what I thought of him, and now
you see it is all coming to pass."

It was one of the captain's foibles to believe himself a political
prophet; and, as he had really both written and spoken highly of
Washington, at the time mentioned, it had no small influence on his
opinions to find himself acting on the same side with this admired
favourite. Prophecies often produce their own fulfilment, in cases of
much greater gravity than this; and it is not surprising that