all were as you say, I am
prouder to be the poor cousin of Roland Forrester, who has bled in the
battles of his country, than if I were the rich and courted kinswoman of
one who had betrayed the memory of his father."

"You are, at least, an angel," said the youth; "and I am but a villain to
say or do anything to give you pain. Farewell then to Fell-hallow, to old
James River, and all! If you can forget these things, Edith, so will I;
at all events, I will try."

"Now," said Edith, "you talk like my true cousin."

"Well, Edith, the world is before us; and shame be upon me, if I, who
have health, strength, and youth to back my ambition, cannot provide you
a refuge and a home. I will leave you for a while in the hands of this
good aunt at the Falls; and then, with old Emperor there for my adjutant,
and Sam for my rank and file, I will plunge into the forest, and scatter
it as I have seen a band of tories scattered by my old major (who, by the
bye, is only three years older than myself), Henry Lee, not many years
back. Then, when I have built me a house, furrowed my acres with my
martial plough-share (for to that, it appears, my sword must come), and
reaped my harvest with my own hands (it will be hard work to beat my
horse-pistols into a sickle), then, Edith--"

"Then, Roland," said the maiden, with a smile and a tear, "if you should
still remember your poor cousin, it will not be hard to persuade her to
follow you to your retreat, to share your fortunes of good and of evil,
and to love you better in your adversity than she ever expected to love
you in your prosperity."

"Spoken like my true Edith!" said the young officer, whose melancholy
fled before her soft accents, as the evil spirit of Saul before the
tinklings of the Jewish harp,--"spoken like my true Edith; for whom I
promise, if fate smile upon my exertions, to rear a new Fell-hallow on
the banks of the Ohio, in which I will be, myself, the first to forget
that on James River. And now, Edith, let us ride forward and meet yon gay
looking giant, whom, from his bustling demeanour, and fresh jerkin, I
judge to be the commander of the Station, the redoubtable Colonel Bruce
himself."

As he spoke the individual thus alluded to, separating himself from the
throng, galloped up to the speaker, and displayed a person which excited
the envy even of the manly looking Forrester. He was a man of at least
fifty years, but as hale as one of thirty, without a single gray ha