Certainly, to some of the French insurgents, the appeal of Madame Darnel, a handsome woman about forty years of age, with an intelligent and sweet expression in her well-cut features, and every way a person of refinement and delicacy, was not without a little effect; but the announcement of Smash that her daughter was his affianced wife who "intended to slope with one of the 'tarnal Britishers," against whom they were in arms, deprived poor Aurelia of all sympathy, and a roar of menace escaped his hearers. "Is this conduct your return for my kindness and charity to a creature so immensely beneath me?" asked Madame Darnel. "As whom?" asked Smash. "You, fellow!" "D--n your cussed impudence! Now then, Aurelia, come along, white face. You look as if you required a box of our New York 'Never-say-die or Health-restoring pills,'" said Smash; and a shriek burst from the girl as his coarse fingers with their long spiky nails grasped her tender arm, and she was literally torn away from her horrified mother, who fainted, and was borne off by some of the better disposed to the house of the curé. Followed by the armed rabble, the helpless Aurelia incapable of all resistance, was dragged through the village of St. Eustache, and taken a literal prisoner, or victim, to her mother's house which adjoined, the seigneury of the Darnels, wherein Colonel Smash had established his headquarters. For a moment or two she thought to conciliate her chief captor. Tears big and bright were welling in her dark blue eyes; her bonnet and veil had been torn off, and her dark hair all unconfined rolled over her back and shoulders, as she stood with clasped hands and pleading looks before the so-called Colonel. "Do shake hands with me," she condescended in her first fear to say; "shake hands, Ithuriel--let us be friends, and send me back to mamma, or bring her here." "Friends--friends be darned!" roared Ithuriel, whose plug of pigtail dropped out of his lantern jaws, after which he proceeded to air it on the point of his jack knife, while eyeing her with mingled malevolence and admiration, and seated himself on a table. "You won't give me a kiss, I suppose; but I can take as many as I like, I reckon; and you look as if you scarcely remembered me--Ithuriel Alcibiades Smash. Strike me ugly, but that's a bad compliment. But," added the bantering ruffian, "I calculate I'll survive it! Flirtation and courtship are two very different things, Miss Aurelia, and I ain't disposed to flirt with you, as you'll find out before long." Smash did not yet molest her; but she knew not what he might do if he imbibed much brandy, as he had a bottle beside him, and was helping himself liberally to the contents thereof, while he talked; and she eyed him with fast-growing alarm.