"What?" snorted Mr. Meredith once more. "Dost mean to tell me that thy heart is in this?" "I--indeed, dadda," stammered Janice, colouring, "until-- until this moment I thought 't was only for yours and mommy's sakes--though at times puzzled by--by I know not what --but now--" "Well, out with it!" ordered the squire, as his daughter hesitated. Janice faltered, then hurried to where her father sat, and, throwing herself on her knees, buried her face in his waistcoat. Something she said, but very sharp ears it needed to resolve the muffled sounds into the words, "Oh, dadda, I'm afraid that I care for him more than I thought." "What!" for a third time demanded Mr. Meredith. "'T is not possible I hear ye aright, girl. Why, a nine-months ago ye were beseeching me, with your arms about my neck, to fulfil my word to Phil." "But that was because I feared Lord Clowes," eagerly explained Janice, with her face withdrawn from its screen; "and then I did not love--or at least did not dream that I did." "Pox me, but I believe Clowes is right when he says the sex are without stability," growled the squire, irascibly. "Put this fellow out of your thoughts, and remember that ye were promised long since." "Oh, dadda, I want to be dutiful, and obedient I promise to be, but you would not have me marry with my heart given elsewhere. You could not be so cruel or--" "Cease such bibble-babble, Jan. 'T is for your own good I am acting. Not merely is this fellow wholly beneath ye in birth and fortune, besides a rebel to our king, but there are facts about him of which ye have not cognisance that should serve to rouse your pride." "What?" "What say ye to an intimacy twixt this same Brereton and Mrs. Loring?" With the question the girl was on her feet, yet with down-hung head. "He--I know he does not care for her," she declared. "Ye know nothing of the kind," retorted the squire. "I bear in my pocket a letter from her to him of so private a nature that she would not trust it to a flag, because then it must be read, which Lord Clowes brought to me with the request that I would in some way smuggle it to him." "That means little," said Janice. "And what say ye to his meeting her in New York, for that is the purpose of her letter to him?" "How know you that?" cried Janice. "Because she writ on the outside that the commander at Paulus Hook had been sent orders to pass him to New York." "That proves no wrong on his part," answered the girl, her head proudly erect. "Nor will I believe any of him." And without further words she went from the room. But though she went to bed, she tossed restless and wakeful till the sun rose. LII SCANT WELCOME FOR MAN AND BEAST