'Twas but a step to her door, and but a moment since he had left it, but he found her crying; crying with joy, in the very chair where he had found her at prayers in the morning.
"I would like to say good-by," he said; "you've been very kind to me to-day."
With a quick dash or two of the dotted white apron (spotless no longer) to her eye, she arose. Major Pitcairn extended his hand, but she folded her own closely together, and said:
"I wish you a pleasant journey back to Boston, sir."
"Will you not shake hands with me before I go?"
"I can feed the enemy of my country, but shake hands with him, NEVER!"
For the first time that day, the little woman's love of country seemed to rise triumphant within her, and drown every impulse to selfishness; or was it the nearness to safety that she felt? Human conduct is the result of so many motives that it is sometimes impossible to name the compound, although on that occasion Martha Moulton labelled it "Patriotism."
"And yet I put out the fire for you," he said.
"For your mother's sake, in old England, it was, you remember, sir."
"I remember," said Major Pitcairn, with a sigh, as he turned away.