inconsistent as it may appear, she became grave, and at once
proceeded to scrape him off, and rub him down with dried leaves, with
fern-twigs, with her handkerchief, with the border of her mantle, as if
he were a child, until he blushed with alternate shame and secret
satisfaction.

They spoke but little on their return to the farm-house, for Mistress
Thankful had again become grave. And yet the sun shone cheerily above
them; the landscape was filled with the joy of resurrection and new and
awakened life; the breeze whispered gentle promises of hope, and the
fruition of their hopes in the summer to come. And these two fared on
until they reached the porch, with a half-pleased, half-frightened
consciousness that they were not the same beings who had left it a
half-hour before.

Nevertheless at the porch Mistress Thankful regained something of her
old audacity. As they stood together in the hall, she handed him back
the sash she had kept with her. As she did so, she could not help
saying, "There are some things worth stooping for, Major Van Zandt."

But she had not calculated upon the audacity of the man; and as she
turned to fly she was caught by his strong arm, and pinioned to his
side. She struggled, honestly I think, and perhaps more frightened at
her own feelings than at his strength; but it is to be recorded that he
kissed her in a moment of comparative yielding, and then, frightened
himself, released her quickly, whereat she fled to her room, and threw
herself panting and troubled upon her bed. For an hour or two she lay
there, with flushed cheeks and conflicting thoughts. "He must never
kiss me again," she said softly to herself, "unless"--but the
interrupting thought said, "I shall die if he kiss me not again; and I
never can kiss another." And then she was roused by a footstep upon
the stair, which in that brief time she had learned to know and look
for, and a knock at the door. She opened it to Major Van Zandt, white
and so colorless as to bring out once more the faint red line made by
her riding-whip two days before, as if it had risen again in
accusation. The blood dropped out of her cheeks as she gazed at him in
silence.

"An escort of dragoons," said Major Van Zandt slowly, and with military
precision, "has just arrived, bringing with them one Capt. Allan
Brewster, of the Connecticut Contingent, on his way to Morristown to be
tried for mutiny and treason. A private note from Col. Hamilton
in