“This isn't the office at all,” she said, emphatically, as she took her seat on a little Dutch rocker that had been Aunt Frances's sewing-chair. “This is the sitting-room, and it's dreadful, Captain Wadsworth, to see it so dusty.” Captain Wadsworth looked decidedly puzzled and astonished for a moment, then he added, slowly, “Oh, I see! I suppose you knew the people who used to own this house?” “Yes, sir, and I know them now; they're the very best friends I have; and, if you please, this house belongs to them still, and they would like to come back just as soon as you can move your men out, and,” noting a few unfamiliar objects in the room, “your furniture and other things.” It must be confessed that this was rather a bold speech for a little maid to venture quite upon her own authority, but Hazel had made this visit for no other reason than plainly to speak her mind, and speak it she would, though she did have to screw her courage up to the very highest pitch in order to accomplish it. “Do _you_ mean to say, Miss Hazel, that you think we have no right here?” questioned the Captain.. “Yes, sir,” Hazel answered warmly, feeling, somehow, that Captain Wadsworth was open to conviction. “You see you really have no right here at all, and I thought that as soon as you understood that you would not stay another minute.” “But the trouble is, I don't understand it; the law says it belongs to me, you know.” “Then I guess the law does not tell the truth, Captain Wadsworth, because even the law cannot make a thing so that isn't so, can it?” “Why, no, certainly not, and it isn't supposed to even try to do that sort of thing, I take it.” “But that's just what it does exactly,” said Hazel, and in her eagerness she deserted the little rocker and came and leaned on the desk near to the Captain. “You know,” she said, confidentially, “I'm just as true to King George as true can be, and I am awful sorry his soldiers have been beaten, and I don't think a country without a King is any good at all. Sometimes I'm almost ashamed that I was born here; but still, some very nice people, like Miss Avery and Starlight, do not think just as I do, and I think their rights ought to be respected.” These were pretty big words, and the Captain looked as though he thought so; but even a very little woman, when she is very much in earnest, sometimes finds language at her command quite as astonishing to herself as to her hearers. “Rights ought to be respected”--certainly that did sound remarkable. Hazel herself wondered where she had picked up so fine an expression, and one that suited so well. “Who is Starlight?” asked the Captain, willing to digress a little from the main point. “The owner of this house,” said Hazel, not willing to digress at all.