"All that you see or hear or are told about this person must be to you as if you had dreamed a dream, and you must forget that you ever had it."
"I have said that I would be faithful. Darling Agnes, you know that you may trust me."
"Just suppose that my friend should be seen, and that my father should be told," she was silent a moment in consideration of such an event, and Maria impulsively continued:
"In that case I would say it was my friend."
"That would not be the truth."
"But he might be my friend, we might have become friends, not as he is your friend, nothing like that, just a friend. Are you very fond of him, Agnes?"
"I love him as my own life."
"And he loves you in that way?"
"He loves me! Oh, yes, Maria, he loves me! even as I love him."
"Sweetest Agnes, thank you for telling me. I will see what you tell me to see, and hear what you tell me to hear; that, and that only. I will be as true to you as your own heart."
"I am sure you will. Some day you shall know all. Now, we will say no more until there is a reason; everything is so uncertain. Tell me about the rout last night."
"It was at Governor Robertson's. His daughter called and asked me to honor them with my company; and grandmother said I ought to go, and uncle Neil said I ought to go – so I went. There was a great time dressing me, but I made a fine appearance when it was done. I wore my silver-tissue gown, and grandmother loaned me her pearl necklace. She told me how many generations of Gordon ladies had worn it, and I felt uncanny as she clasped it round my throat. I wondered if they knew – "
"You should not wonder about such things. Did you dance much?"
"I had the honor to dance with many great people. Every gentleman danced one minuet with his partner, and then began cotillon and allemand dances; and there were some songs sung by Major André, and a fine supper at midnight. It was two o'clock when I got home."
"Tell me who you talked with."
"Oh, everybody, Agnes; but I liked most of all, the lady who stays with the Robertsons – Mrs. Gordon; her husband was with Burgoyne and is a prisoner yet. She was very pleasant to me; indeed, she told Uncle Neil 'I was the perfectest creature she had ever seen,' and that she was 'passionately taken with me.' She insisted that I should be brought to her, and talked to me about my dress and my lovers, and also about grandfather and grandmother."
"She lived with them once, and helped to make great sorrow in their house."
"I know. Grandmother does not forgive her."
"And your uncle?"
"He is very civil to her, for she is vastly the fashion. She played cards all the evening, and called me to her side more often than I liked. She said I brought her luck. I don't think she approved of my dancing so often with Captain Macpherson. She asked questions about him, and smiled in a way that was not pleasant, and that made me praise the Highlander far more than I meant to, and she barely heard me to the end of my talk ere she turned back to her cards, and as she did so, said: 'What a paragon in tartan! Before this holy war there may have been such men, but if you are a good child pray that a husband may drop down from heaven for you; there are no good ones bred here now.' Then every one near began to protest, and she spread out her cards and cried, 'Who leads? Diamonds are trump.' When she called me next, she was sweeping the sovereigns into her reticule; and Governor Ludlow said she was Fortune's favorite, and uncle Neil said, 'I see, Madame, that you now play for gold,' and I think uncle meant something that she understood, for she looked queerly at him for a moment, and then answered, 'Yes I play for money now. I confess it. Why not? If you take away that excuse, the rest is sinning without temptation.' She is so well bred, Agnes, and she speaks with such an air, you are forced to notice and remember what she says."
Agnes was troubled to think of the innocent child in such society, and without obtruding counsel, yet never restraining it when needful, she did her best to keep Maria's conscience quick and her heart right. It was evident that she regarded the whole as a kind of show, whose color and sound and movement attracted her; yet even so, this show was full of temptation to a girl who had no heart care and no lack of anything necessary for the pride of life.
This afternoon the half-camp and half-garrison condition of New York was very conspicuous. All was military bustle and excitement; trumpets were calling, drums beating, and regiments parading the streets once devoted to peaceful commerce and domestic happiness. Royalist merchants stood in the doors of their shops exchanging snuff-box compliments and flattering prophecies concerning the expedition about to leave – prophecies which did not hide the brooding fear in their eyes or the desponding shake of the head when sure of a passer's sympathy. And a sensitive observer would have felt the gloom, the shame and sorrow that no one dared to express; for, just because no one dared to express it, the very stones of the streets found a voice that spoke to every heart. The bitterest royalist remembered. All the riot of military music could not drown the memory of sounds once far more familiar – the cheerful greeting of men in the market place, and all the busy, happy tumult of prosperous trade; the laughter and chatter of joyful women and children, and the music of the church bells above the pleasant streets.
Neil was silent and unhappy; Maria full of the excitement of the passing moment. They sat in the open window of Neil's office and watched company after company march to the warships in which they were to embark: Grenadiers of Auspach with their towering black caps and sombre military air; brass-fronted Hessians; gaudy Waldeckers; English corps glittering in scarlet pomp; and Highlanders loaded with weapons, but free and graceful in their flowing contour. On these latter especially, both Neil and Maria fixed their interest. Who can say how long national feeling, expatriated, may live? Neil leaped to his feet as the plaided men came in sight. Their bagpipes made him drunk with emotion; they played on his heartstrings and called up centuries of passionate feelings. He clasped his sword unconsciously; his hand trembled with that magnetic attraction for iron that soldiers know. At that moment he said proudly to his soul, "Thou also art of Scottish birth!" and a vision of hills and straths and of a tossing ocean filled his spiritual sight.
Maria's interest was of the present and was centered on the young captain walking at the head of his company; for Quentin Macpherson was a born soldier, and whatever he might lack in a ball-room, he lacked nothing at the head of his men. His red hair flowing from under his plaided bonnet was the martial color; it seemed proper to his stern face and to the musket and bayonet, the broadsword, dirk and pistols which he wore or carried with the ease and grace of long usage. He stepped so proudly to the strains of "Lochaber;" he looked so brave and so naturally full of authority that Maria was, for the moment, quite subjugated. She had told him on the previous night, at what place she was to view the embarkment; and she detected the first movement which showed him to be on the watch for her.
This fleeting pleasure of exhibiting himself at his best to the girl he loves, is a soldier's joy; and the girl is heartless who refuses him the small triumph. Maria was kind, and she shared the triumph with him; she knew that her white-robed figure was entrancing to the young captain, and she stood ready to rain down all of Beauty's influence upon his lifted face. Only a moment was granted them, but in that one moment of meeting eyes, Maria's handkerchief drifted out of her hand and Macpherson caught it on his lifted bayonet, kissed, and put it in his bosom. The incident was accomplished as rapidly and perfectly as events unpremeditated usually are; for they are managed by that Self that sometimes takes our affairs out of all other control and does perfectly, in an instant, what all our desiring and planning would have failed to do in any space of time.
Neil was much annoyed, and made a movement to stop the fluttering lawn.
"What have you done, Maria?" he asked angrily. "The Van der Donck's and half a dozen other women are watching you."
"I could not help it, Uncle Neil. I do not know how it happened. I never intended to let it fall. Honor bright! I did not."
And perhaps Neil understood, for he said no more on the subject as they walked silently home through the disenchanted city. All the bareness