“I always know when you are displeased, cousin mine,” she said putting her arm about her. “You pull down the corner of your mouth, so.” Suiting the action to the word. “And your eyebrows go up, so. Now, confess: when you were with us, didn’t you want to come back to your own people?”
“Yes,” admitted Peggy, “I did. But it was because of my mother. Thy father would not be with thee there, and as thy brother is in the army also, he may be sent anywhere in the States at any time. While I know that thee must find it far from agreeable to be with those who are not of thy politics, still ’tis the wish of thy father that thee should stay here.”
“Will you never be naught but a prim little Quakeress?” cried Harriet shaking her. “Know then that I have wishes too, and friends there who are almost as close as kinspeople. Then, too, you would be relieved of me here. Just think how delightsome that would be,” she ended teasingly.
“I am not thinking of us at all,” confessed truthful Peggy, “but of what is best for thee. I feel as though I were responsible to Cousin William for thee.”
“Don’t you worry, mother mentor,” cried Harriet dancing about gleefully. “When Clifford comes your responsibility ceases. How he will laugh when he finds that I can no longer care for myself. I am going now to my room, little mother. If I stay longer than you think best call me.”
“Thee is saucy,” was Peggy’s retort, as Harriet ran out of the room, pausing only long enough to make a mouth at her.
But Harriet’s high spirits had vanished the next morning when she returned from her visit to Mr. Reed.
“What think you?” she cried bursting in upon Peggy who was ironing in the kitchen. “Mr. Reed will see that the parole is given Clifford, but the exchange must wait until an American prisoner is found of equal rank with Clifford, who can be given for him. Isn’t it provoking!”
“I should think thee could bear the delay patiently so long as thee will have thy brother with thee,” remarked Peggy quietly. “’Twould be far more vexatious if the parole could not be given.”
“Why, of course, Peggy. Oh, well! I suppose that I must content myself. Thank fortune, I can at least write to Clifford. If he were not in the rebel lines even that would be denied me. I am going to write him now.”