“Do not choose, because you do not dare.”
“Do not dare?”
“Hush, Joscelyn, she does not mean what she says,” put in Mistress Strudwick.
“Yes, I do mean it, Martha, every word of it. She dare not read it, because it is a spying letter,—asking information, mayhap, which may give us over to a massacre like to that of Wyoming: that’s why she dare not.”
A chorus of cries and hisses arose, but the girl on the step did not quail. Her delicate lip curled with scorn. “’Tis false! You do all know I would be incapable of such wickedness.”
“Then read us the letter and prove it.”
“I will not.”
She thrust the letter into her bosom and faced them with flashing eyes, the very picture of defiance. But a touch from Mistress Strudwick quelled the storm within her. Turning swiftly, she put her arm around the old woman’s neck. “There, I am going to be good. I would not distress you and mother again for the world. But you know I have the right of it.”
“Yes,” echoed Janet Cameron, taking her place on the other side of Joscelyn. “We all know that though you are a Tory, you are no traitor; and I say, Out upon Mistress Bryce for hinting such a thing! I am a Continental, and my father is in Charleston fighting for the cause, but I would trust Joscelyn Cheshire to the end of the world!”
Out in the crowd the sentiment against the girl instantly changed, and all but Amanda Bryce applauded Janet’s words.