All this had made a distinct impression upon him; but the affair was her own,--one which he felt reluctant to mention even to her father or brother. And so, in answer to Jack's direct question, he uttered one of the few falsehoods of his life. "Nay, Jack; I noted nothing unusual in her manner. I think as you, that she has been a bit overwrought by last night's happenings. Ah," he exclaimed, with animation, and glad to speak the truth once more, "but it was a brave thing she did! And yet she likes to make naught of it." "Dorothy is brave by nature," her father said, his eye's kindling with pride. "And she is too young to comprehend the full weight o' what she did, prompted as it was by impulse, and by love for her brother." Then turning to Jack, he asked with a change of manner, "Did you see or hear aught o' the British frigate on your way home?" "Nothing, father,--only, as I told you, that she dropped anchor in Little Harbor, just as the darkness fell." "She'd not be likely to go from her anchorage in this fog." The old man spoke musingly, while he slowly filled his pipe for a final smoke before retiring for the night. "But I take it they will move from there as soon as may be, on account of fearing the trouble they have a right to expect because of the men they've stolen," Hugh said indignantly. "Yes," added Jack, "even if only to get into Great Bay, and closer to their fellows on the Neck." "'T is a thousand pities they should have taken Mugford," the old gentleman remarked, as he carefully lit his pipe. "Yes," his son assented; "it is in every way a pity, for if they wish to invite trouble they could not have made a better opening for ill feeling among the people of the town." "Indeed they could not," Hugh exclaimed hotly. "Every one is sure to take Mugford's abduction to heart, and find a way to make the redcoats answer for it." "We shall find a way, please God, to make them all answer for their overbearing and insolence to us as a country as well as individuals," Joseph Devereux said gravely. "And that reminds me, I had surely thought Broughton and the rest o' the committee would have returned from Boston this night." "He was very doubtful, as I think, of getting back before to-morrow, or perhaps until Monday." And a dreamy look softened Jack's face, as if he might be thinking of what was to be told when Nicholson Broughton returned. "Jack, what a lucky beggar you are!" exclaimed Hugh, with a touch of envy in his tone, as the two young men tarried a moment in the former's room before saying good-night. Jack opened his eyes still wider, exactly after the fashion of Dorothy when she was surprised. "You see," Hugh added nervously, "you love Mary Broughton, and she loves you, and you have the approval and blessing of both fathers. Now I--" Here he stammered, and then became silent. "What is it, Hugh--do you wish me to understand that you love Mary yourself?"