“Is thee talking about me, Peggy?” demanded a voice, and Peggy gave a little cry of welcome as she turned to find Betty Williams standing behind her. “Hasn’t thee anything better to do than to tell of thy friends’ failings? And what is this I hear? That the express from the Cowpens is staying at thy house? Is he friend of thine? What luck thee has, Peggy.”
“Thou shalt come and meet him for thyself, Betty. Yes; he is an old friend, Lieutenant John Drayton. Surely thee remembers hearing me speak of him?”
“A lieutenant? Charmante! I dote on army men,” cried Betty rapturously. “I remember now about him. Does thee know him also, Harriet?”
“Yes,” answered Harriet curling her lip. “He is a pretty fellow enough, and will never swing for the lack of a tongue. Lieutenant Drayton is no favorite of mine, though Peggy and her mother are fond of him.”
“Yes; mother and I are fond of him,” spoke Peggy with some sharpness, quick to resent a slur against one of her friends. “Perhaps he is deficient in the court manners to which my cousin hath been accustomed, but he treats even an enemy with courtesy, and thee has had no cause to complain of him, Harriet. Would that he could say as much for thee.”
“Where was his courtesy when I asked him to return that shirt?” demanded Harriet. “A true courtier would not have kept it after I had expressed a wish for its return.”
“Thee should not have presented it if thee did not wish him to keep it.”
“What ever are you girls talking about?” demanded Betty with eager inquisitiveness. “Tell me all anent the matter. What shirt? Tell me this minute else I will perish with curiosity. That is, if ’tis no secret.
“Oh!” she cried merrily as with some laughter and many details both Harriet and Peggy unfolded the matter of the shirt. “Oh, Harriet! what a rout! I blame thee not for not liking him. How he discomfited thee! I’m so anxious to meet him. Does thee know Robert Dale, Harriet? We girls have always esteemed him the very nicest boy in the world. By the way, Peggy, father wrote that Robert hath been put in General Lafayette’s division. The Select Corps ’tis called. ’Tis monstrous distinction.”
“How?” asked Harriet. “I know him not though it seems as though I should, I have heard so much anent him. How is the Select Corps distinctive?”