, "A moment, Elizabeth.
Your pardon, Miss Williams," and drew Elizabeth aside, and spoke to
her in a low tone: "We have only to temporize with him. Two of my men
have attended me from my quarters. I had a better horse, and rode
ahead, in my eagerness to see you. My two fellows will be here soon,
and the business will be done."

But such doing of the business did not suit Elizabeth's purpose. "I
wish to humiliate the man," she answered Colden, inaudibly to the
others; "to take down his upstart pride! 'Twould be no shame to him,
to be made prisoner by numbers."

"What, then?" asked Colden, dubiously.

"Bring down the coxcomb, before us women, in an even match!"

To prevent objections, she then abruptly went from Colden, and resumed
her place at her aunt's side.

Colden stood frowning, not half pleased at her hint. It occurred to
him, as it did not to her, that the mere allegiance and favoring
wishes of herself were not sufficient possessions to ensure victory in
such a match as she meant. Elizabeth, accustomed to success, did not
conceive it possible that the chosen agent of her own designs could
fail. But the chosen agent had, in this case, wider powers of
conception.

All this time, Captain Peyton had stood as motionless as a figure in a
painting. He now interrupted Colden's meditations with the gentle
reminder:

"I am waiting for my payment, Major Colden."

Colden was not a man of much originality. So, in his instinctive
endeavor to gain time, he bungled out the conventional reply, "You
wish to seek a quarrel with me, sir?"

"Seek a quarrel?" retorted Peyton. "Is not the quarrel here? Has not
Miss Philipse spoken of an offence to your name, for which I ought to
receive payment from you? Gad, she'd not have to speak twice to make
_me_ draw!"

Colden continued to be as conventional as a virtuous hero of a novel.
"I do not fight in the presence of ladies, sir," said he.

"Nor I," said Peyton. "Choose your own place, in the garden yonder.
With snow on the ground, there's light enough."

And Harry went quickly, almost to the door, near which he stopped to
give Colden precedence.

"Nay," put in Elizabeth, "we ladies can bear the sight of a sword-cut
or two. Wait for us," and she would have gone to send for wraps, but
that Colden raised his hand in token of refusal, saying:

"Nay, Elizabeth. I will not consent."

"Come, sir," said Peyton. "'Tis no use to oppose a lady's whim. But if
you make haste, we may