“Who took in the disguise, my lord? As I have since learned—it was. And I venture to say that there is not an officer in the service in your lordship’s position, or in any other, who would punish a daughter for the attempt to save her father’s life!” “The devil is that she did save it, sir!” he answered with vexation. But he could not regain his old fluency, and presently he asked me to tell him all I knew. I did so, feeling sure that he would be unable to withhold his admiration; and the final result as far as I was concerned was a reprimand and ten days confinement to camp—and an intolerable amount of jesting! Some wag, Paton, I am afraid, discovered that her name was Constantia and adding it to our Osgodby motto, the single word “Virtus,” scrawled a whole series of “Virtus et Constantia” over my books and papers. Perhaps in a silly way I liked it. Certainly this was the least of my troubles. The greatest, or at any rate, that which tried me most sharply, was the fact that I could not communicate with Constantia without laying myself open to suspicion. For several months I received no news of her and had to content myself with doing all that I could to procure the release of her brother. Of me, indeed, she heard through the mysterious channels which were open to her side. But she was too thoughtful of me and too careful of my honor to approach me through them. At length there came a change laden with bitter sorrow to her. Her father fell in the engagement at Guildford Court House in a gallant but vain attempt to stem the flight of the Northern Militia. Stricken to the heart—though she had the satisfaction of knowing that he had fallen on the field of honor—she abandoned the Bluff which, exposed to incursions from both sides, was no longer a safe place for her. With Aunt Lyddy and Mammy Jacks she came down to Charles Town. For how much the desire to see me counted in inducing her to take this step, she knew and I guessed. And fortune which had frowned, presently smiled on us. I was attached to General Leslie’s force in Charles Town, and there I saw her almost daily and learned to know her as I had learned to love her. I passed unscathed through the fight at Eutaw Springs: she uninjured through many months of devoted attendance on her sick and wounded countrymen. A month before the evacuation of the city by the British, and when the approach of peace had already softened men’s minds and made things easy which had been hard before, we were married at St. Philip’s. We passed our honeymoon on the Marion Plantation in St. John’s Parish with a pass granted by General Greene; and there Constantia’s brother, whose freedom I had procured two months before, joined us. When he, with Aunt Lyddy and Mammy Jacks, went north to take up again the threads of life at the Bluff, we crossed to the islands and thence sailed for Europe in the Falmouth Packet.