As, with a heightened color, and eye lighted with strong emotion, she concluded, her brother smiled and replied: “You are the same artless, impulsive girl as ever; but, as usual, you are in the right. Do not believe that your persuasive powers were needed in my behalf. I have not traveled three thousand miles to engage in this war with a faint heart or hesitating mind. But there is another, an ardent lover of liberty, on whom they may not be entirely thrown away. Allow me to introduce you to my friend and fellow-traveler, the Count Louis De Zeng. He travels, as you perceive, under a cloud at present; but I think I may safely trust to your discretion.” Astonished and bewildered, Ellen could not believe that she had heard aright; and it was not until some moments after De Zeng, with entire self-possession, had advanced to pay his respects, which he did in unexceptionable English, that she found words to reply. “I know that I have made myself very ridiculous,” she said, blushing deeply; “but if Count De Zeng is really a republican at heart, he will make due allowances.” Count De Zeng _was_ a republican at heart, but at that moment he felt that there was something at his heart besides republicanism. If ever, in the course of his approaching warfare, he should have occasion to storm a citadel, he could ask no better success than had attended Miss Gansevoort’s undesigned assault. She had carried the outworks, glacis, fosse, and parapet, at a single blow, and stood at that moment in the centre of the works completely victorious. What terms she would be disposed to allow the vanquished, was a question yet to be settled. Gansevoort hastened to explain to his sister the necessity of his friend’s disguise, and the importance of preserving the secret; and Ellen, delighted, as she believed, at this accession to the American ranks, promised to use all necessary discretion. CHAPTER III.