"He stopped for a few hours over the Virginia line to see his wife, and I rode the livelong night that I might have this glimpse of you. Methinks I should almost have deserted to come back for a look at you all, had I not persuaded Dunn to choose me on this expedition." "And where are you to meet him?" "At Charlotte, three days hence." "When Eustace--when Master Singleton,"--Betty corrected herself, with a vivid blush, "wrote, saying you were dead, mother and I were like to go crazy with grief. He wrote it kindly, but for two days mother did not leave her bed." "And what did Joscelyn say?" "Oh, Joscelyn cried till her eyes were all red and puffed, and reminded us how you and she used to ride and read and walk together without even so much as a sharp word until the war talk came on. She did much to comfort mother." "God bless her! But you were not long in suspense?" "No; but mother had already prepared to have a service in your memory, and Janet and Patience had practised the hymns." "Well, there was at least a grave to sing over," laughed Richard; but his mother was crying, even to think of those sad hours. "How thin you are!" she said, feeling his arms tenderly. "Well, mother, when a man has been in his grave, 'tis not to be expected that he will look like one of the fatted kine. But I am plump as a rosy Cupid compared with what I have been; and this reminds me that I am hungry for some of your good cooking; do you and Betty get me up a bit of dinner while I look to my horse." But he knew his horse had been cared for, and instead of the stable, it was Joscelyn's door he sought. "I have but a little while left," he said; "come and sit with us, that I may not lose sight of you for one of those blessed minutes. I am as a thirsty man with the cup held ever out of his reach." "I thought you would wish to talk with your mother and sister alone." "There is nothing I tell them that I would not quite as willingly trust to you; for though you are a Loyalist, yet you are loyal to your friends," he said, smiling at his own pleasantry, and she laughed too. Long afterward those words came back to him with a pang. As they crossed the street Mistress Strudwick hailed them from the sidewalk. "Hey, there, Richard! you are keeping bad company and will fall under suspicion, consorting with that young Tory," she cried. "Are your despatches in the pocket next to her?--if so, beware!" "I have them in my heart, Mistress Strudwick." "Then in faith are they already Joscelyn's," laughed the old lady, teasingly pinching the girl's cheek as the two came up to her. "Come, Mistress Strudwick, Richard wears not his heart on his sleeve." "But he pins it instead upon yours--which is quite as public. Ah, Richard, she is a sad dare-devil!" and she went on to tell him of some of the scenes of the past months. He had feared for her from the first, and in his mother's parlour he caught her arm almost fiercely:--