"Fate, dearest Julia," said the officer despondingly, "has decreed our interview earlier than I had expected. However, under all circumstances, I may esteem myself happy to have seen you at all. I am indebted for this favor to the officer commanding yonder vessel, in which our regiment is embarked, for the satisfaction, melancholy as it is, of being enabled to bid you a temporary farewell."
"Then are we both indebted to one of my own family for the happiness; for that it is a happiness, Ernest, I can answer from the depression of my spirits just now, when I feared you were about to depart without seeing me at all. The officer in command of your vessel is, or ought to be, a cousin of our own."
"Indeeed!—then is he doubly entitled to my regard. But, Julia, let the brief time that is given us be devoted to the arrangement of plans for the future. I will not for a moment doubt your faith, after what occurred at our last interview; but shall I be certain of finding you here, when later we return to wash away the stain this day's proceedings have thrown upon our national honor. Forgive me, if I appear to mix up political feelings, with private grief, but it cannot be denied, (and he smiled faintly through the mortification evidently called up by the recollection), that to have one's honor attainted, and to lose one's mistress in the same day, are heavier taxes on human patience, than it can be expected a soldier should quietly bear."
"And when I am yours at a later period, I suppose you will expect me to be as interested in the national honor, as you are," replied Julia, anxious to rally him on a subject she felt, could not but be painful to a man of high feelings, as she fully believed the Colonel to be. "How are we to reconcile such clashing interests? How am I so far to overcome my natural love for the country which gave me birth, so to rejoice in its subjugation by yours; and yet, that seems to be the eventual object at which you hint. Your plan, if I understand right, is to return here with an overwhelming army; overrun the province, and make me your property by right of conquest, while all connected with me, by blood, or friendship, are to be borne into captivity. If we marry, sir, we must draw lots which of us shall adopt a new country."
"Nay, dearest Julia, this pleasantry is unseasonable. I certainly do intend, provided I am exchanged in time to return here with the army, which I doubt not will be instantly dispatched to restore our blighted fame, and then I shall claim you as my own. Will you then hesitate to become mine? Even as the daughter forsakes the home of her father without regret, to pass her days with him who is to her father, mother, all the charities of life, in short—so should she forsake her native land adopting in preference that to which her husband is attached by every tie of honor, and of duty. However, let us hope that ere long, the folly of this war will be seen, and that the result of such perception, will be a peace founded on such permanent bases, that each shall be bound, by an equal tie of regard, to the home of the other."
"Let us hope so," eagerly replied Julia. "But what has become of our friend, Miss Montgomerie, in all the confusion of this day. Or am I right in supposing that she and her uncle are of the number of those embarked in my cousin's vessel?"
The name of the interesting American, coupled as it was, with that of one infinitely more dear to her, caused Gertrude for the first time, to look up in the face of the officer, in expectation of his reply. She was struck by the sudden paleness that came over his features again, as on the former occasion, when allusion was made to her at his recent visit to Amherstburgh. He saw that his emotion was remarked, and sought to hide it under an appearance of unconcern, as he replied:
"Neither Miss Montgomerie nor her uncle are embarked. The latter, I regret to say, has been one of the few victims who have fallen."
"What! dead—that excellent kind old man—dead," demanded the sisters nearly in the same breath?