e, by this time, under the walls of
Fort George,[139] for anything that we know to the contrary."

[Footnote 139: a fort on the Canada side of the Niagara
River, where it flows into Lake Ontario.]

The old man stopped suddenly, and looked earnestly from one of his
companions to the other; the action being observed by the soldiers,
they paused also.

"Did I hear right?" the stranger uttered, raising his hand to screen
his eyes from the rays of the setting sun. "What did he call you?"

"My name is Wharton Dunwoodie," replied the youth, smiling.

The stranger motioned silently for him to remove his hat, which the
youth did accordingly, and his fair hair blew aside like curls of
silk, and opened the whole of his ingenuous countenance to the
inspection of the other.

"'Tis like our native land!" exclaimed the old man with vehemence;
"improving with time. God has blessed both."

"Why do you stare thus, Lieutenant Mason?" cried Captain Dunwoodie,
laughing a little; "you show more astonishment than when you saw the
falls."

"Oh, the falls! they are a thing to be looked at on a moon-shiny
night, by your aunt Sarah and that gay old bachelor, Colonel
Singleton."

"Come, come, Tom, no jokes about my good aunt, I beg; she is kindness
itself; and I have heard it whispered that her youth was not
altogether happy."

"Why, as to rumor," said Mason, "there goes one in Accomac, that
Colonel Singleton offers himself to her regularly every Valentine's
Day; and there are some who add that your old great-aunt helps his
suit."

"Aunt Jeanette!" said Dunwoodie, laughing; "dear, good soul, she
thinks but little of marriage in any shape, I believe, since the death
of Dr. Sitgreaves."

"The last time I was at General Dunwoodie's plantation, that yellow,
sharp-nosed housekeeper of your mother's took me into the pantry, and
said that the colonel was no despicable match, as she called it."

"Quite likely," returned the captain; "Katy Haynes is no bad
calculator."

The old man listened to each word as it was uttered, with the most
intense interest; but, toward the conclusion of the dialogue, the
earnest attention of his countenance changed to a kind of inward
smile. Mason paid but little attention to the expression of his
features, and continued:

"To me she is selfishness embodied."

"Her selfishness does but little harm," returned Dunwoodie. "One of
her greatest difficulties is her aversion to the blacks. She says th