Miss Morris, just come to town with good Whig opinions, was uneasy in this society, and said, “We shall have enough of everything when we catch Sir Henry Clinton.” In a minute there would have been more war had not my aunt risen, and the party turned to drink chocolate and eat cakes. After a world of little gossip they settled their debts and went away, all but Mrs. Peniston and her niece, my aunt declaring that she wanted the elder lady’s advice about the proper mode to cool blackberry jam. For this sage purpose the shadow-like form of Darthea’s aunt in gray silk went out under cover of my aunt’s large figure, and Darthea and I were left alone. How pretty she was in fair white muslin with long gloves, a red rosebud in each sleeve, and only a trace of powder on her hair, smiling, and above all women graceful! She had seemed older when we met in the Provostry, and now to-day was slim and girl-like. I do not know where she got that trick of change, for in after-days, when in the fuller bloom of middle age, she still had a way of looking at times a gay and heedless young woman. She had now so innocent an air of being merely a sweet child that a kind of wonder possessed me, and I could not but look at her with a gaze perhaps too fixed to be mannerly. “Darthea,” I said, as we sat down, “I owe my life to you twice--twice.” “No, no!” she cried. “What could I do but go to the jail? Miss Wynne was away.” “You might have told my father,” I said. Why had she not? “Mr. Wynne is grown older, and--I--There was no time to be lost, and Arthur was gone on duty for I know not what.” She was seeing and answering what further might have seemed strange to me. “Aunt Peniston was in a rage, I assure you. My aunt in a rage, Mr. Wynne, is a tempest in a thimble. All in a minute it boils over and puts out the little fire, and there is an end of it, and she asks what ought to be done. But now I am penitent, and have been scolded by Arthur. I will never, never do it any more. My aunt was right, sir.” “I think you gave me more than life, Darthea, that day. And did you think I would take the parole?” “Never for a moment!” she cried, with flashing eyes. “I would have taken it, but I want my friends to be wiser and stronger than I. I--I was proud of you in your misery and ragged blanket.” And with this the wonderful face went tender in a moment, and for my part I could only say, “Darthea! Darthea!” She was quick to see and to fear, and to avoid that which was ever on my lips when with her, and which she seemed to bid to live, and then to fly from as if she had never tempted me.