"Hush, Joscelyn, she does not mean what she says," put in Mistress Strudwick. "Yes, I do mean it, Martha, every word of it. She dare not read it, because it is a spying letter,--asking information, mayhap, which may give us over to a massacre like to that of Wyoming: that's why she dare not." A chorus of cries and hisses arose, but the girl on the step did not quail. Her delicate lip curled with scorn. "'Tis false! You do all know I would be incapable of such wickedness." "Then read us the letter and prove it." "I will not." She thrust the letter into her bosom and faced them with flashing eyes, the very picture of defiance. But a touch from Mistress Strudwick quelled the storm within her. Turning swiftly, she put her arm around the old woman's neck. "There, I am going to be good. I would not distress you and mother again for the world. But you know I have the right of it." "Yes," echoed Janet Cameron, taking her place on the other side of Joscelyn. "We all know that though you are a Tory, you are no traitor; and I say, Out upon Mistress Bryce for hinting such a thing! I am a Continental, and my father is in Charleston fighting for the cause, but I would trust Joscelyn Cheshire to the end of the world!" Out in the crowd the sentiment against the girl instantly changed, and all but Amanda Bryce applauded Janet's words. "Eustace Singleton writes her naught but love-letters--let her keep them!" cried another girl. "Methinks I should not want the world to be reading my sweetheart's letters and counting the kisses he sends me." "No, nor those he gives you," said Martha Strudwick, with a merry wink, and instantly there was a great laugh, for the girl had been caught kissing her lover the winter day on which the troops had marched, for which imprudence her mother had soundly boxed her ears. "And now," cried Joscelyn, when the laugh had passed, "to prove that there is no treason in this letter, I shall let Betty Clevering--as good a Continental as the best of you--sit down yonder on the bench and read every word of it before I myself have seen it. Here, Betty, be you the judge whether what is herein writ is of treasonable import; and mind you skip nothing, particularly the love passages." She laughingly pushed Betty upon the bench, and leaving Eustace's letter in her hands, came back to Janet's side. "My letter was from my brother, Joscelyn; and he said he knew not where Richard had been sent. He himself is in the old Sugar House in New York; what he suffers he will not say, but we can guess, since so much has been said of the place." Joscelyn kissed the tearful face softly. "Perchance your imagination is over-vivid. It grieves me to the quick that any of our townsfolk should suffer." "It will be a great relief to his mother to know that Richard is not in the Sugar House." "Yes, there is only one worse prison in the country, and that is for the captured seamen." "Do not let us talk of its horrors."