And at this Peggy marveled anew. Closely guarded the youth had been all the way into Philadelphia. Major Gordon had spoken of an increase in vigilance since entering the city, but to bind him! Americans were not usually so unkind. The change in treatment puzzled her.
“Why should they bind thee?” ejaculated Sally in reply to Clifford. “’Tis cruel!”
“I thought that you wished me bound, Miss Sally,” he observed gravely.
“We-ell! I don’t wish thee bound, Friend Clifford, but thee would not listen to me unless thee were. Do—do the thongs hurt thee very much?”
Now when an exceedingly pretty girl pities a man for any discomfort he is undergoing it would be an abnormal being who did not get out of it all that he could. And Sally, with her hair escaping from under her cap in soft little tendrils, her blue eyes wet with tears of compassion like violets drenched with dew, made a bewitching picture. So Clifford pulled a long face, and said lugubriously:
“It’s pretty bad, mistress.”
“Oh!” she cried. “I wish I could help thee. ’Tis monstrously cruel to use thee so! Yet thee would not listen to me if thee were not bound; would thee?”
“Perchance ’twould be best to take advantage of the fact, and tell me what you have come to say,” he suggested with the hint of a smile.