"I will let it go at once, if you'll only tell me what I wish to know."
"And what may that be?" she asked, with an innocent sang-froid that plainly angered him.
"You are a saucy boy," he said impatiently. "You remember well enough what I asked you. Do you know Mistress Dorothy Devereux?"
"Aye," was the quick reply; "I know her as well as you know your own face that you see in the glass every day." She stood rubbing the arm he had now released, and upon which his grip had been unpleasantly firm.
"Ah—then she is your sister." He had moved so as to stand directly in front of the slight figure, whose head reached but half-way up his own broad chest.
She looked at him for a second and then burst into laughter.
"I know you now," she said. "You must be the Britisher she told of this morning,—the one who came here, and whom Mary Broughton frightened so badly that he fell over and cut his head." And again the mocking laugh came from her ready lips.
"I don't believe your sister told you any such untruth," said the irritated young man. "I missed my footing, and fell; that was all. I meant no rudeness, although the lady you name—Mary Broughton, did you call her?—seemed not to believe me."
"Mary has but little taste for a redcoat," was the dry retort.
"And judging from your own tone, you share her taste," he said, now quite good-naturedly, for he found himself taking a strong liking to this bright, free-speaking lad.