"Not I! I am just like the rest—"
"Treason! I won't hear it," said Desborough, softly. "There are no others like you on earth."
"Just like the rest," she continued emphatically, unheeding the interruption, which the others had hardly caught, "and I will tell you that never again will that flag at the gaff there be the flag of America. You have lost us for good."
"Oh, don't say that. Make a personal exception of yourself at least,
Miss Wilton, and give us room to hope a little."
"No, no," she laughed. "You have lost us all—me included."
There was a chorus of expostulation and argument immediately, but Miss
Wilton was not to be overborne.
"Father!" she called quickly to the colonel, who, followed by the captain, at once joined the little group of officers. "These gentlemen seem to doubt me when I say their sometime colonies are gone for good. Won't you help me to state the point so they will understand it?"
"Gentlemen," said the old colonel, slowly and impressively, "the colonies were the most loyal and devoted portion of the king's dominion at one time. I have been up and down the length and breadth of them, I know the feeling. I was for years a soldier of the king myself,—with your fathers, young sirs,—and I can bear witness that no part of the kingdom responded with such alacrity to every legitimate demand upon it by the home government. Never did men so readily and willingly offer themselves and their goods for the service of the king. But it is all changed now. The change came slowly, but it came inevitably and surely, and you could no more change the present conditions than you could turn back the sun in its course. England has lost her colonies—"
"Her late colonies," corrected Katharine, softly.
"Yes, yes, of course, her late colonies, that is, beyond possibility of recovery. We will not be taxed without representation."