“Oh, the fainting--yes,” said Miss Peniston, lightly. “It was fortunate it came just then. And Mr. Wynne was glad enough of it later. He said it had saved him from the most horrible regret life could bring. If he had but had time to think--or had known--” “Known what?” “No matter; I was in time to stop myself from saying a foolish thing. Let me give thanks for my escape. I have a restless tongue, and am apt to say what I do not mean; and I do faint at nothing.” “It was very opportune, my dear Miss Peniston.” “La! la! as aunt says, one would think I went faint on purpose, in place of its being the heat, and a providential accident, and very annoying too; not a woman anywhere near me.” “It saved a worthless life,” I said; “and but for it I should have had short shrift and the gallows on the Common.” “Hush!” she returned. “That is not pretty talk. Your cousin is unlucky, he says, to have had you fall in his way when it was impossible to escape from arresting you. He told me Mr. Andre assured him he could have done no other thing, and that it was vain to regret what was the inevitable duty of a soldier. I think Arthur was the most pleased of all when you got away. I must say you went very fast for so grave a Quaker.” “And could you see?” said I, slyly. “No, of course not. How should I, and I in a dead faint? Mr. Andre told me next day he thought that dreadful rebel, Mr. McLane, saved your life when he was mean enough, just in the middle of that beautiful ball, to set fire to something. At first we took it for the fireworks. But tell me about Miss Gainor’s girl-boy--our own dear Jack.” “He can still blush to beat Miss Franks, and he still believes me to be a great man, and--but you do not want to hear about battles.” “Do I not, indeed! I should like to see Mr. Jack in a battle; I cannot imagine him hurting a fly.” “The last I saw, at Germantown, of Jack, he was raging in a furious mob of redcoats, with no hat, and that sword my aunt presented cutting and parrying. I gave him up for lost, but he never got a scratch. I like him best in camp with starving, half-naked men. I have seen him give his last loaf away. You should hear Mr. Hamilton--that is his Excellency’s aide--talk of Jack; how like a tender woman he was among men who were sick and starving. Hamilton told me how once, when Jack said prayers beside a dying soldier and some fellow laughed,--men get hard in war,--our old Quaker friend Colonel Forest would have had the beast out and shot him, if the fool had not gone to Jack and said he was sorry. Every one loves the man, and no wonder.”