"No, Miss Shippen, I'm a Scotch Irish Presbyterian."
"Then we shall shock you, I fear."
"But whatever may be your religious views, sir, you wish surely to know something of life?" put in the British officer, a well made blonde man with straight nose, and large mouth. "Would you take advantage of your present opportunities, you shall learn things you have not dreamed of in your mountain wilds."
"Adventure has ever appealed to me, sir, and lately my life has been o'er tame," I answered, determined to be no milksop among these British. "So you do not ask me to go a backbiting with Sir Benjamin, and the rest, there's little you can offer me, promising excitement, that you will not find me ready for."
"Glad am I to hear it, Mr. McElroy—
"Captain McElroy, an' you please; having won my humble title by hard service, and not by court favor, I am very proud of it, sir."
"Beg your pardon," somewhat haughtily; "I was about to say I like not a soldier, Captain McElroy, who cants and prays between battles, as did the hypocritical Cromwellians. A gay life in barracks is proper reward for arduous work during a campaign;—to-morrow, an' you will, I shall call to take you to our quarters, where you may lunch with four as jolly good fellows as are to be found in the British army."
I had just assented to this invitation of Captain Wheaton's, when Miss Shippen introduced me to the latest comer, as Colonel Forbes; he was a small, wiry, swarthy man who had been making the round of the room, and now leaned over Miss Shippen's chair, whispering in her ear.
"One of Morgan's Riflemen, said you, Miss Margaret?" eyeing me with most evident curiosity, as I rose to return his salutation; "a famous leader, and brave troops; they did the work for us at Saratoga. To your colonel and his men belongs the glory of that victory, Captain McElroy—yet I hear it has been filched from you by that braggart Gates, and that Colonel Morgan has not even been accorded a promotion. This so-called Continental Congress knows naught of the art of warfare, nor can recognize the qualities of a true leader, or else it has its favorites whom it is determined to advance, regardless of merit."
Though all this was true, I burned inwardly to hear him say it; determined, however, to repress the rash words which rose to my lips, I set them firmly, folded my arms, and bowed in grave silence.