She turned, and rejoined her cousin with such an air of maidenly resentment as a young woman would be apt to discover, who found herself the subject of matrimonial arrangement without her own feelings being at all consulted. Barnstable, who knew but little of the windings of the female heart, or how necessary to his mistress, notwithstanding her previous declarations, the countenance of Cecilia, was to any decided and open act in his favor, stood in stupid wonder at her declaration. He could not conceive that a woman who had already ventured so much in secret in his behalf, and who had so often avowed her weakness, should shrink to declare it again at such a crisis, though the eyes of a universe were on her! He looked from one of the party to the other, and met in every face an expression of delicate reserve, except in those of the guardian of his mistress, and of Borroughcliffe. The colonel had given a glance of returning favor at her whom he now conceived to be his repentant ward, while the countenance of the entrapped captain exhibited a look of droll surprise, blended with the expression of bitter ferocity it had manifested since the discovery of his own mishap. “Perhaps, sir,” said Barnstable, addressing the latter, fiercely, “you see something amusing about the person of this lady, to divert you thus unseasonably. We tolerate no such treatment of our women in America!” “Nor do we quarrel before ours in England,” returned the soldier, throwing back the fierce glance of the sailor with interest; “but I was thinking of the revolutions that time can produce; nothing more, I do assure you. It is not half an hour since I thought myself a most happy fellow; secure in my plans for overreaching the scheme you had laid to surprise me; and now I am as miserable a dog as wears a single epaulette, and has no hope of seeing its fellow!” “And in what manner, sir, can this sudden change apply to me?” asked Katherine, with all her spirit. “Certainly not to your perseverance in the project to assist my enemies, madam,” returned the soldier, with affected humility; “nor to your zeal for their success, or your consummate coolness at the supper-table! But I find it is time that I should be superannuated--I can no longer serve my king with credit, and should take to serving my God, like all other worn-out men of the world! My hearing is surely defective, or a paddock-wall has a most magical effect in determining sounds!”