"I feel not your kindness as a burden, Miss Nelly, it has been accepted as freely as bestowed—'twas the longing to see and to thank you that I could endure no longer. I have now no further cause for unrest, save this threat of yours to leave me, before I have had time to clothe my gratitude in adequate words."
"Will't say you're glad I'm a Tory—and that even a Tory may be honest and a Christian? If you will, I shall call it fair quittance of all you owe me," and she laughed the rippling saucy laugh that had been ringing through my dreams for months.
"That a Tory may be honest and a Christian, I admit most freely,—but that I am glad you are one is more than I can say, with aught of truth. I would have you all on my side if I could; still more, I would have no one with half so good a claim to you as I."
"But 'tis the other way, Sir Patriot—no one else has so good a claim to you as have I; since you are my paroled prisoner. Do they treat you well, poor captive?"
"As an honored guest, fair jailer; there's but one thing lacking to my comfort."
"And what may that be? It shall be supplied."
"A daily interview, and a long one, with my jailer."
"You have been very slow, sir, to signify a wish to see her. Two weeks ago to-day it has been since you came, and this is the first intimation I have had that my presence would be welcome."
"And daily I have hoped you would stop at my threshold to ask of my improvement—you could not fail to know that I have been pining for one look at your bright face."
"Young women must not take things for granted, sir; you, however, are not like the British officers and the city macaronis, you are both honest and modest, and if you have not made great haste to be gallant, I feel sure you are sincere. But I must say good-by for the present, a skating party waits for me, down stairs."