ng very
like it."

"You babble of love," I blurted out, "and you know nothing of it! What
foolish whim possesses you to think that fascination Walter Butler has
for you is love?"

"What is it, then?" she asked, with a little shudder.

"How do I know? He has the devil's own tenacity, bold black eyes and a
well-cut head, and a certain grace of limb and bearing nowise
remarkable. But"--I waved my hand helplessly--"how can a sane man
understand a woman's preference?--nay, Elsin, I do not even pretend to
understand _you_. All I know is that our friendship began in an instant,
opened to full sweetness like a flower overnight, and, like a flower, is
nearly ended now--nearly ended."

"Not ended; I shall remember."

"Well, and if we both remember--to what purpose?"

"To what purpose is friendship, Carus, if not to remember when alone?"

I listened, head bent. Then, pursuing my own thoughts aloud: "It is not
wise for a maid to plight her troth in secret, I care not for what
reasons. I know something of men; it is a thing no honest man should
ask of any woman. Why do you fear to tell Sir Frederick Haldimand?"

"Captain Butler begged me not to."

"Why?" I asked sharply.

"He is poor. You must surely know what the rebels have done--how their
commissioners of sequestration seized land and house from the Tryon
County loyalists. Captain Butler desires me to say nothing until,
through his own efforts and by his sword, he has won back his own in
the north. And I consented. Meanwhile," she added airily, "he has a
glove of mine to kiss, I refusing him my hand to weep upon. And so we
wait for one another, and pin our faith upon his sword."

"To wait for him--to plight your troth and wait for him until he and
Sir John Johnson have come into their own again?"

"Yes, Carus."

"And then you mean to wed him?"

She was silent. The color ebbed in her cheeks.

I stood looking at her through the evening light. Behind her, gilded by
the level rays of the sinking sun, a new headstone stood, and on it I
read:

IN MEMORY OF

Michael Cresap, First Cap't
Of the Rifle Battalions,
And Son to Col. Thomas
Cresap, Who Departed this
Life, Oct. 18, A.D. 1775.

Cresap, the generous young captain, whose dusty column of Maryland
riflemen I myself had seen when but a lad, pouring through Broadalbin
Bush on the way to Boston siege! This was his grave; and a Tory maid in
flowered petticoat and chip hat was seated on t