“It could not have been Clifford, then,” Harriet paused to remark, looking at her cousin wonderingly. “I see no resemblance to you, Peggy.”
“But thee said that he looked like father,” reminded Peggy. “I am like father too, save my eyes and hair, which are dark, like mother’s. If thy brother looks like father ’twould be natural that John should think him like me. Read on, Harriet. Perchance ’twas not he, after all.”
“I was sure then,” continued Harriet, reading, “that this was your brother; so, after obtaining permission from the officer in charge, I approached him and said:
“‘I cry you pardon, sir, but are you Clifford Owen, brother of Mistress Harriet Owen?’
“He looked at me queerly, it seemed to me, before he replied:
“‘I am not he; but if it were my name I see not what concern it is of yours.’
“‘I bear a message to one Clifford Owen,’ I told him. ‘If you are not he of course ’twould be of no moment to you.’
“‘No,’ he said, and seemed disinclined to talk. Seeing him so I left off for a time, but after some chat with the others, I turned to him again.
“‘If you are agreeable, sir, I would fain know your name?’
“‘You are persistent,’ he cried with some heat. ‘I am not the man you seek; then why should you wish my name?’