“Ah, dadda, you will not punish him for the wrong his parents did him?”
“’T is not that, Jan, but because he is a rebel to—”
The girl gave a little laugh, as if a weight were taken from her thoughts, and she flung her arms about her father’s neck and kissed him. “Why, dadda,” she cried, with the old roguishness, “how can he be a rebel, now that they’ve won?”
The squire pulled a wry look. “Little I dreamed I’d ever break faith, or make friends of the enemies of my king, but the times are disloyal, and I suppose one must go with them. If ye can persuade Phil to release us, Jan, have your way.”
Again his daughter kissed him, but this time tenderly, with all the archness gone. “Thank you, dadda, for yielding,” she said, “for ’t would have been horrible to me had you not.”
The squire kissed her in return. “Better one rebel in the family than two,” he responded with a laugh, which suggested that whatever his compunctions, he knew at heart that the outcome was for the best, and was already reconciled to it. “Thou ’rt too good a lass, Jan, to make into more of a rebel than this same Brereton will no doubt make thee.”
“He’ll make no rebel of me to my darling dadda, that I promise,” asserted Janice, joyfully.
Mr. Meredith laughed still more heartily. “I’ll rest content if ye don’t declare independence of your old dad, and allegiance to him, within one month of marriage, Jan.”
As he ended, came a knock on the door and an officer entered. “His Excellency directs me to say, Miss Meredith,” he announced, “that the provost-marshal has orders to bring Colonel Hennion to you, whenever you are ready to see him.”
“I’ll see him now,” replied the girl.