Mrs. Martin said no more; her husband's will had, since she married, been in all matters of importance law to her, and was more so than ever now that he lay weak and helpless. His words and manner too had much impressed her. Her whole sympathies were passionately with her countrymen, and the heavy losses she had so recently sustained had added vastly to her hatred of the Spaniards. The suggestion, too, of her husband that though Ned might do no great deeds as a soldier he might be the means of saving some woman or child's life, appealed to her womanly feelings. She had girls of her own, and the thought that one of like age might possibly be saved from the horrors of the sack of a city by Ned's assistance appealed to her with great force. She went about the house for the rest of the day subdued and quiet. Ned was puzzled at her demeanour, and had he not seen for himself that his father was progressing satisfactorily he would have thought that some relapse had taken place, some unfavourable symptom appeared. But this was clearly not the reason, and he could only fancy that now his mother's anxiety as to his father's state was in some degree abating, she was beginning to feel the loss of her father and brothers all the more. That the request she had promised to make in his name to his father had anything to do with the matter did not enter his mind. Indeed, he had begun to regret that he had made it. Not that his intense longing to take service against the Spaniards was in any way abated, but he felt it was selfish, now that he might for the first time be of real use to his parents, for him thus to propose to embark in adventures on his own account. He had asked his mother to put the matter before his father, but he had scarce even a hope the latter would for a moment listen to the proposal. The next morning after breakfast, as he was about to start for a stroll to the wharf to have a talk with Peters, his mother said to him quietly: "Put aside your cap, Ned, your father wishes to speak to you." She spoke so gravely that Ned ascended the stairs in some perturbation of spirit. Doubtless she had spoken to his father, and the latter was about to rate him severely for his folly in proposing to desert his duty, and to embark in so wild an adventure as that he had proposed. He was in no way reassured by the grave tone in which his father said: "Place that chair by my bedside, Ned, and sit down; my voice is not strong and it fatigues me to speak loud. And now," he went on, when Ned with a shamefaced expression had seated himself by the bedside, "this desire that your mother tells me of to fight against the Spaniards for a time in the service of the Prince of Orange, how did it first come to you?"