our
captain found himself strengthened in his notions by the circumstance.

The winter passed away without any of Maud's suitors making a visible
impression on her heart. In March, the English evacuated Boston, Robert
Willoughby sailing with his regiment for Halifax, and thence with the
expedition against Charleston, under Sir Henry Clinton. The next month,
the family returned to the Knoll, where it was thought wiser, and even
safer to be, at a moment so critical, than even in a more frequented
place. The war proceeded, and, to the captain's great regret, without
any very visible approaches towards the reconciliation he had so
confidently anticipated. This rather checked his warmth in favour of
the colonial cause; for, an Englishman by birth, he was much opposed at
bottom to anything like a dissolution of the tie that connected America
with the mother country; a political event that now began seriously to
be talked of among the initiated.

Desirous of thinking as little as possible of disagreeable things, the
worthy owner of the valley busied himself with his crops, his mills,
and his improvements. He had intended to commence leasing his wild
lands about this time, and to begin a more extended settlement, with an
eye to futurity; but the state of the country forbade the execution of
the project, and he was fain to limit his efforts by their former
boundaries. The geographical position of the valley put it beyond any
of the ordinary exactions of military service; and, as there was a
little doubt thrown around its owner's opinions, partly in consequence
of his son's present and his own previous connection with the royal
army, and partly on account of Joel's secret machinations, the
authorities were well content to let the settlement alone, provided it
would take care of itself. Notwithstanding the prominent patriotism of
Joel Strides and the miller, they were well satisfied, themselves, with
this state of things; preferring peace and quietness to the more
stirring scenes of war. Their schemes, moreover, had met with somewhat
of a check, in the feeling of the population of the valley, which, on
an occasion calculated to put their attachment to its owner to the
proof, had rather shown that they remembered his justice, liberality,
and upright conduct, more than exactly comported with their longings.
This manifestation of respect was shown at an election for a
representative in a local convention, in which every individual a