"Indeed, Miss Semple, he is so great a man I have forgotten whether he has a fault. He is such a man as men build their love round while he leads them on the way to immortality. Often I have seen the whole army shaken, confused, hopeless; but Washington never shrank, or slipped, or compromised; he looked unswervingly to the end. He is the Moses of America; our people's hope, our young men's idol, our old men's staff and sword. And even physically, who would compare our god-like Washington with this?" and he took from his pocket-case a pen-and-ink sketch of King George, taken at the beginning of the war and showed it to the girls. They looked at it curiously, and Maria said: "Surely, Mr. Deane, that is not a true likeness; it is what you call a pasquil--a lampoon--to make ridiculous his Majesty." "It is not intended as a lampoon. But I never see it without thinking of the mighty ghosts of the great Henrys, and the armed Edwards, and then I wonder if they are not watching, with anger and amazement, the idiotic folly of this German." "I must really go home now," said Maria. She spoke as if she had all at once become aware of the gravity of the words she was listening to. "I should not have stopped so long. Grandmother is not well." And she thought Agnes was not sorry to bid her good-bye; "but that is natural," she reflected, "I suppose I should feel the same. She must have a great many things to tell such a lover. I dare be bound I have been much in the way." Her feelings were captious and impetuous, and she walked rapidly to them, in spite of the heat. Somehow she was not pleased with Agnes, and Harry Deane also had bid her but a formal farewell. And yet not formal, for when he held her hand a moment, he laid it open within his own, and said with a look she could not forget, "my life lies there. I have put it in your hand myself, knowingly, willingly." And she had clasped his hand and answered gravely: "It is as safe there as it would be in the hand of your mother--or of Agnes."