If the reader should ask me why I dreaded to meet Anne Mordaunt, under such circumstances, I might be at a loss to give him a very intelligible answer. I feared even to see the sweet face I sought; and oh! how soft, serene, and angel-like it was, at that budding age of seventeen!—but, though I almost feared to see it, when at last I saw her I had so anxiously sought approaching me, arm and arm with Mary Walface, having Bulstrode next herself, and Harris next her friend, my eyes were instantly averted, as if they had unexpectedly lighted on something disagreeable. I should have passed without even the compliment of a bow, had not my friends been more at their ease, and more accustomed to the free ways of town life than I happened to be myself.
“How's this, Cornelius, Coeur de Lion!” exclaimed Bulstrode, stopping, thus causing the whole party to stop with him, or to appear to wish to avoid me; “will you not recognise us, though it is not an hour since you and I parted? I hope you found the tickets; and when you have answered 'yes,' I hope you will turn and do me the honour to bow to these ladies.”
I apologized, I am afraid I blushed; for I detected Anneke looking at me, as I thought, with some little concern, as if she pitied my awkward country embarrassment. As for Bulstrode, I did not understand him at that time; it exceeding my observation to be certain whether he considered me of sufficient importance or not, to feel any concern on my account, in his very obvious suit with Anneke. Nevertheless, as he treated me with cordiality and respect, while he dealt with me so frankly, there was not room to take offence. Of course, I turned and walked back with the party, after had properly saluted the ladies and Mr. Harris.
“Coeur de Lion is a better name for a soldier than for a civilian;” said Anneke, as we moved forward; “and, however much Mr. Littlepage may deserve the title, I am not certain, Mr. Bulstrode, he would not prefer leaving it among you gentlemen who serve the king.”
“I am glad of this occasion, Mr. Littlepage, to enlist you on my side, in a warfare I am compelled to wage with Miss Anne Mordaunt,” said the Major gaily. “It is on the subject of the great merit of us poor fellows who have crossed the wide Atlantic in order to protect the colonies, New York among the number, and their people, Miss Mordaunt and Miss Wallace inclusively, from the grasp of their wicked enemies, the French. The former young lady has a way of reasoning on the matter to which I cannot assent, and I am willing to choose you as arbitrator between us.”
“Before Mr. Littlepage accept the office, it is proper he should know its duties and responsibilities,” said Anneke, smiling. “In the first place, he will find Mr. Bulstrode with loud professions of attachment to the colonies, much disposed to think them provinces that owe their very existence to England; while I maintain it is English men, and that it is not England, that have done so much in America. As for New York, Mr. Littlepage, and especially as for you and me, we can also say a word in favour of Holland. I am very proud of my Dutch connections and Dutch descent.”
I was much gratified with the “as for you and me;” though I believe I cared less for Holland than she did herself. I made an answer much in the vein of the moment; but the conversation soon changed to the subject of the military theatre that was about to open.
“I shall dread you as a critic, cousin Annie,” so Bulstrode often termed Anneke, as I soon discovered; “I find you are not too well disposed to us of the cockade, and I think you have a particular spite to our regiment. I know that Billings and Harris, too, hold you in the greatest possible dread.”
“They then feel apprehensive of a very ignorant critic; for I never was present at a theatrical entertainment in my life,” Anneke answered with perfect simplicity. “So far as I can learn, there never has been but one season of any regular company, in this colony; and that was when I was a very little and a very young girl—as I am now neither very large, nor very old as a young woman.”
“You see, Littlepage, with how much address my cousin avoids adding, and 'very uninteresting, and very ugly, and very disagreeable, and very much unsought,' and fifty other things she might add with such perfect truth and modesty! But is it true, that the theatre was open only one season, here?”