However patriotic Hannah might be, she did not think it advisable to disregard this order, and both dames retreated in a flutter. As the young officer stood looking after them, the house door opposite him opened, and Nancy Hanson appeared upon the door-step. She had dressed herself carefully in her fine quilted petticoat and best flowered over-dress, and looked as pretty and fresh as an April morning.
"Friend," said she, in a half-doubtful, half-timid voice. The young officer whipped off his cocked hat, and bent stiffly, as you might bend a jackknife.
"Madam, yer servant," he answered. He spoke with a slight brogue, for he was an Irish gentleman.
"We have a friend with us," said Nancy, "who hath been compelled for a time to keep his bed. He was brought here last night on account of the battle, and was too weary to go further. Our neighbor Friend John Stapler, across the street, hath thick stockings, and I desire to get, if I can, a pair from him, as, thee may know, in cases of dropsy the legs are always cold. I am afraid to cross the street with these soldiers in it. Would thee escort me?"
"Madam, you do me infinite honor in desiring me escort," said the young officer, bowing more deeply than before; for Nancy was very pretty.
Friend John Stapler was a very strict Friend, and as such was inclined to favor the royalist side; still, he was willing to do a kindly turn for a neighbor. He was a wrinkled, weazened little man, whose face, with its pointed nose and yellowish color, much resembled a hickory nut.
"Hum-m-m!" ejaculated he, when Nancy, who had left the officer at the door, stated the case to him—"hum-m-m! thus it is that intercourse with the world's people defileth the chosen. Still, I may as well help thee out o' the pother. Hum-m-m! I suppose my small-clothes would hardly be large enough, would they?" and he looked down at his withered little legs.
"I hardly think so," said Nancy, repressing a smile, as she pictured to herself the tall dignified Colonel in little John Stapler's small-clothes.
"Well, well," said he, "I'll just step out the back way, and borrow a suit from John Benson. He's the fattest man I know."
He soon returned with the borrowed clothes, which they wrapped up in as small a bundle as possible, after which Nancy rejoined the officer at the door.