"Ah! you little think how such news travels," she answered teasingly.
"Surely, the commodore did not tell you?"
"Is it a secret, then?"
"No, dear madam; but the circumstances were so strange that——"
"I would like to know all about it," interjected the mistress of the White House, who loved to hear a love romance quite as much as she did when wooed and won as a wife.
Tempest needed no pressing, for he was in love with Bertha, and nothing was so gratifying to him as to talk of her.
He told his story, and Mrs. Madison was delighted.
Her eyes flashed with the fire of youth, her face flushed with pleasure, and she had to call her husband to tell him of the brave privateer's love story.
President Madison listened.