The old woman courtesied, but there was a dogged, hunted look in her eyes as she crept away, muttering, "Dis is what Zeb call de 'lan' ob de free!'"
CHAPTER XLIV.
A WIFE'S EMBRACE.
"O PAPA," cried Marian, after reaching the library, "we let Mr. Merwyn go without a lunch, and it's nearly two o'clock. Nor do I believe you have had a mouthful since breakfast, and I've forgotten all about providing anything. Oh, how signally I have failed on the first day of battle!"
"You are not the first soldier, by untold millions, who has done so; but you have not shown the white feather yet."
"When I do that I shall expire from shame. You rummage for a disguise, and I'll be back soon."
She hastened to the kitchen, and at a glance saw that the Irish cook had fled, taking not a little with her. The range fire was out, and the refrigerator and the store-closet had been ravaged. She first barred and bolted all the doors, and then the best she could bring her father was crackers and milk and some old Sherry wine; but she nearly dropped these when she saw a strange man, as she supposed, emerge from his bedroom.
Mr. Vosburgh's laugh reassured her, and he said: "I fancy I shall pass among strangers, since you don't know me. Nothing could be better than the milk and crackers. No wine. My head must be clearer to-day than it ever was before. So the Irish Biddy has gone with her plunder? Good riddance to her. She would have been a spy in the camp. I'll bring home food that won't require cooking, and you'll have to learn to make coffee, for Merwyn and others will, no doubt, often come half dead from fatigue. All we can do is to forage in such shops as are open, and you'll have to take the office of commissary at once. You must also be my private secretary. As fast as I write these despatches and letters copy them. I can eat and write at the same time. In an hour I must go out."
"I won't play the fool again," said the girl, doggedly.
"Drink this glass of milk first, while I run down for more, and satisfy my mind as to the fastenings, etc."