“Well, they're very kind people, Joe, and Starlight and his aunt are living there still, only now that the war is over they want to come back.”
“And that's not an easy thing to do, is it,” laughed Joe, “when your house is full of English officers and their men?”
“But the soldiers have no right there, Joe, and the worst of it is, Captain Wadsworth says he is going to resign his commission and stay after his men go back to England, and make it his own home. He says it belongs to him. It was given to him, after Miss Avery left it, by what they call a military order. But, military order or no, Joe, that house belongs to Aunt Frances.”
“Of course it would seem so, Miss Hazel—”
“And if it hadn't been for Colonel Alexander Hamilton she'd be in it to-day, Joe. You see she went to law about it, and they say Colonel Hamilton, who took Captain Wadsworth's side, is so smart and so handsome that he just talked the court into deciding against her.”
“It certainly was mighty queer in Lawyer Hamilton,” said Joe, meditatively, “to turn against his own side in that fashion; but, Miss Hazel, why don't you go and see him about it?”
Hazel looked up a moment with a questioning gaze to see if he Were quite in earnest.
“That is just what I am going to do this very day,” she answered, reassured, “and first I want to see Captain Wadsworth. Let me down at the Starlights' gate, please.”
So a few moments later the Albany coach reined up in front of the Starlight homestead, and Hazel, jumping quickly down from the coach with a “Thank you for the ride, Joe,” swung open the old Dutch gate with an air well calculated to make the heart of Captain Wadsworth quake.