The idea of picturing the graceful Peyton Dunwoodie as a shop boy could never enter the mind of Sarah, and she looked around her in surprise, when the colonel continued,—
“This Mr. Dun—Dun—”
“Dunwoodie! Oh, no—he is a relation of my aunt,” cried the young lady, “and an intimate friend of my brother; they were at school together, and only separated in England, when one went into the army, and the other to a French military academy.”
“His money appears to have been thrown away,” observed the colonel, betraying the spleen he was unsuccessfully striving to conceal.
“We ought to hope so,” added Sarah, with a smile, “for it is said he intends joining the rebel army. He was brought in here in a French ship, and has just been exchanged; you may soon meet him in arms.”
“Well, let him—I wish Washington plenty of such heroes;” and he turned to a more pleasant subject, by changing the discourse to themselves.
A few weeks after this scene occurred, the army of Burgoyne laid down their arms. Mr. Wharton, beginning to think the result of the contest doubtful, resolved to conciliate his countrymen, and gratify himself, by calling his daughters into his own abode. Miss Peyton consented to be their companion; and from that time, until the period at which we commenced our narrative, they had formed one family.
Whenever the main army made any movements, Captain Wharton had, of course, accompanied it; and once or twice, under the protection of strong parties, acting in the neighborhood of the Locusts, he had enjoyed rapid and stolen interviews with his friends. A twelvemonth had, however, passed without his seeing them, and the impatient Henry had adopted the disguise we have mentioned, and unfortunately arrived on the very evening that an unknown and rather suspicious guest was an inmate of the house, which seldom contained any other than its regular inhabitants.
“But do you think he suspects me?” asked the captain, with anxiety, after pausing to listen to Caesar’s opinion of the Skinners.
“How should he?” cried Sarah, “when your sisters and father could not penetrate your disguise.”