“You do not mean to say that you tried to tear his ears off with your nails!” exclaimed Alberta, in amazement. “If he has got any ears left it isn’t my fault,” replied Elfie, defiantly, as she wiped her hands and sat down to the tea table. “Well,” said Alberta, “I have sometimes had to look on while hamlets were burning and spies hanging, but I could not have done anything like that.” Notwithstanding that Elfie had been seized and carried off by guerrillas, and ought to have been in despair, she was not. On the contrary, she was hungry; and so she made a very good supper, and with very little assistance from Alberta, she cleared the table of everything eatable on it. Meanwhile outside the thunder rolled, the lightning flashed, and the rain poured. It was not a storm to alarm any one who was not exposed to its fury; for at that season of the year thunder and lightning could not be very violent or dangerous. But the rain! Surely, since the deluge never had rain fallen in such torrents. “The fords will be impassable for a week,” said Alberta, exultingly, as she went to the window and looked out and listened to the pouring, dashing, lashing rain. Elfie sighed deeply, thinking that the rise in the river would make rescue for her all the more unlikely. Alberta went to the door of her room and called Gill, who seemed to be on duty in the hall outside. “Take away this service, Gill,” she said. And the youth, to make short work, stretched the door wide open and lifted the table, with all upon it, and carried it bodily out of the room. Alberta and Elfie drew in their chairs to the fire. “You do not know, Elfie, what a respite from anxiety it is to me to be sure of one night’s undisturbed rest! This storm that is raging outside will lull me to repose as the sweetest music in the world would fail to do,” said Alberta, with a sigh of intense relief. “But how and why?” inquired Elfie. “Oh, because I know while the storm is raging and the rain is pouring the river is also rising, and the fords will be impassable, and our camp will be safe from attack for one night, and we may sleep in peace! Oh, Elfie! unless you had lived as I have lived for the last three years, in the midst of ‘war’s alarms,’ you could never realize what a blessed relief there is in the feeling sure that we may sleep in peace for one night!” “Oh! Alberta, what a life for you—for you, a daughter of the house of Goldsborough—reared in luxury and refinement! How can you bear it? Why do you bear it? Why do you not accept Erminie’s offer, and seek refuge with her?” earnestly inquired Elfie. “Why? Do you ask me why?” exclaimed Alberta, and her cold eyes, fixed upon the fire before her, dilated and burned, and her impassive face glowed as she replied: “My lot is cast with his and with his cause!”