Her position in the community was rather a peculiar one; for while many of her companions disliked her tenets, they loved her for her merry ways and grace of manner, and so they refused to listen to some of the more rabid members who counselled ostracism. Her mother, too, was a strong bond between her and the public; for when the patriotic women of the town met together to sew and knit for the absent soldiers, Mistress Cheshire often went with them, and no needle was swifter than hers. It was her neighbours she was helping; the soldiers were a secondary consideration. She was not going to quarrel with Ann Clevering and Martha Strudwick because their husbands had fallen out with the king; that was his Majesty's affair, not hers, and she did not believe in meddling in other people's quarrels. But Joscelyn shut herself in her room on these days and read her English history; or else, being deft with her pencil, made numerous copies of the historical pictures of King George and his ministers, which were pinned up on the railing of her balcony as a new testimonial of her loyalty. But no sooner was her back turned than some passer-by tore them away, sometimes leaving instead a written threat of retaliation that made her mother's heart cold with a nameless dread. It was in the end of March, some six weeks after the departure of the troops, that sad news came from the south. Where the Pedee widened toward its mouth a blow had been struck for liberty, and Uncle Clevering had fallen in a charge with Sumter. There had been a body of Tories to disperse, a wagon-train to capture, and despatches to intercept; and Sumter's troops, knowing this, rode all the windy night through moonshine and shadow to surprise the enemy in the daffodil dawn of that March morning. Swift, silent, resistless, like spectres of the gray forest, they came upon the astonished Redcoats--and kept their tryst with Victory! The prisoners, the wagon-train, the despatches were theirs; but one of them had ridden to his rendezvous with death. The elder Clevering's horse was led back through all the long miles to Hillsboro' with the stirrups crossed over the saddle; and Ann Clevering sat in her house, bereft. Each day Martha Strudwick and other friends went to her with words of kindly commiseration; but it was Mistress Cheshire who did most to comfort the afflicted widow, so that these two were drawn yet closer together with that bond of sympathy that comes of a mutual loss. And in Betty's or Mistress Clevering's presence Joscelyn never again talked tauntingly of English prowess, since it was an English bullet that had wrought such sorrow to her friends. But even this death, shocking as it was to her, in no way shook her allegiance to the cause she held to be right. CHAPTER V. WINDING THE SKEIN. "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways." --BROWNING. It was April, and the days came with a sheen of blue sky between rifts of rain.