ROSE. Oh, fearfully! Run to your glass, by all means. Set your springes, for these red birds are rare game. KATE. Sister! But I'll be revenged. [_Exit_ KATE. _Enter_ MAJOR CLEVELAND, _ushered in by_ LIEUTENANT ELSWORTH, _who withdraws_. ELSWORTH. My dear Major Cleveland, let me welcome you zealously to this abode. CLEVELAND. A great many thanks, my dear Elsworth. I'm delighted to meet so true-hearted a loyalist. We pushed our march to partake of your hospitality. Ah, Miss Elsworth! How shall I express my delight in finding that Time, who deals so inexorably with us, has been induced to favour you. It gives me infinite pleasure, Miss Elsworth, to meet you once again, for the recollection of the occasions we have met previously are bright spots in my memory. ROSE. Oh, sir, I thank you. ELSWORTH. And how, sir, comes on the royal cause? Will it be long ere these rebels are taught their duty to their King? CLEVELAND. Have no apprehensions, my dear Elsworth. Another campaign will scatter them to the mountains, and a live rebel be so great a curiosity, that to cage one and exhibit him would make a showman's fortune. ROSE. [_Aside_.] If he knew there were a caged one here now! ELSWORTH. But come, Major Cleveland, where are your companions? I must see why they have not followed you. CLEVELAND. They are delayed for a moment with the troop. By the way, Miss Elsworth, I believe that there are a couple of gentlemen without, who are old admirers of yours--Captain Arbald and Lieutenant Marvin. ROSE. Old, Major! You flatter my taste. CLEVELAND. Why, with beauty I thought the conquest of the morning stale matter by night. ROSE. Oh, sir, if staleness went to make their age, they would be proverbed instead of Methuselah. CLEVELAND. They took very much to you. ROSE. So did the measles, sir. CLEVELAND. They are desperately enamoured of you--would do any difficult thing--even die for you. ROSE. So they once told me, but I courtesied, and replied that I should prefer a live rebel to even two dead loyalists. CLEVELAND. And then-- ROSE. They vowed to live for me. I begged of them to put themselves to no such inconvenience; that I wouldn't trouble them to do anything of the kind; that if they didn't think it worth while to live for themselves, I shouldn't intrude upon any suicidal intention they might entertain. CLEVELAND. And so they lived-- ROSE. But I had no hand in it; I am innocent; my skirts are clear of the melancholy fact. CLEVELAND. They are noble gentlemen, Miss Elsworth. You must bear with me if I defend them. They are good soldiers, and fine-looking fellows. ROSE. For which I thank their tailors. CLEVELAND. Gay, dashing; brave of heart, and witty of tongue. ROSE. Then they have been studying the almanac. When I saw them last, they hadn't a grain of wit--not even by scratching. CLEVELAND. Really, Mr. Elsworth, your daughter has a sharp tongue. ELSWORTH. It is her humour, sir. Her passes are but play.