The house, into which our heroine and her attendant had been ushered for safe keeping during the expected conflict, was divided into two compartments, and separately occupied by a couple of young farmers, and their still more youthful and recently espoused wives, twin sisters, by the names of Mary and Martha. But as happy a social circle as these close and interesting ties should have continued to render the inmates, the fiend of discord, with the approach of the opposing armies, had just entered in among them. One of the young men was a whig, and the other a tory; and the wives had very naturally adopted the predilections of their respective husbands. The young men had, as yet, however, taken no active part in the public quarrel; and, while the war was at a distance, their difference of opinion had not been permitted very essentially to disturb their friendly intercourse. But now, as the war was brought to their door, the sight of the two hostile armies, coming together for deadly conflict on the great issue in which their hitherto repressed sympathies were oppositely enlisted, had aroused the demon of contention in their friendly bosoms. The boastful assumptions of the tory, uttered in his excitement at beholding the imposing display of the British forces around him, were promptly met by the counter predictions of the other. Retort, recrimination, and darkly-hinted menaces followed, till jealousy and rancor seemed completely to have usurped the place of all those fraternal feelings that lately blessed their peaceful abode. Such was the painful and ill-omened scene which was passing in the apartment of the brother who had espoused the cause of his country, where both families were assembled to witness the anticipated battle, when the unexpected entrance of the girls put an end to the altercation; and it soon after being announced that the Americans had retreated, the tory, followed by his wife, retired with an exulting sneer, to his own room, leaving the fair strangers, as it happily chanced, to the care and more congenial companionship of the young patriot and his warmly sympathizing Martha, who now kindly supplied their wants, and then conducted them to their attic chamber, where, it being now nearly dark, they immediately betook themselves to their homely but grateful couch. And, overcome by the fatigues and harrowing anxieties of the day, they soon fell asleep, expecting to be roused in the morning by the din of the battle, which they felt confident was yet to take place before the invaders would be permitted to advance farther on their boasted mission of plunder and outrage.