"We are used to this fashion of getting about and hardly think of fatigue. It would be a poor weakling who could not stand a few miles. The roads are rough for the chaise."
How pretty she looked in her white and blue. She smiled at him. They had been quite good friends since the night of the dance, though there had been no opportunity of teasing each other.
But she was not thinking of his regard nor his pleasure just now. She seemed to have changed mysteriously, to have grown out of careless childhood, and taken a great deal of thought about the country. When she remembered that General Howe had come with his army to subdue it and that her brother was in the soldiery she shrank from him. How could she love him? He had pleaded for her sweet mother's sake, and that touched her inmost soul.
She had listened with frightened eyes and a breathless throbbing of the heart to the account of the battle of Germantown, and her fears for her beloved country often outran her hopes when she had a quiet time to think. The servants had been forbidden to tell her the more awesome part of it, only she knew General Washington had been beaten and forced to retreat, and the British hailed it as a great victory.
The young lieutenant and the stately dame found many things to talk about, as well-bred people often do, skirting over the thin places, for by this time he understood that madam's heart was not on the English side. But he was confident when it was all over that she would accept defeat gracefully.
The ascent from the city was gradual. In the distance they noted the small gray stone houses, looking frosty in the wintry air, with here and there a larger one, like the Chew House, to be famous long afterward in history. Then they turned aside and lost sight of it. Captain Nevitt thought he would like to have been in the fray, but he did not say so.
"Thou art very quiet, little one. I have heard people offer a penny for one's thoughts, a big English penny," smilingly.
"Mine do not go as cheap as that," answered the maiden.
"A crown, then?"