"Your countrymen! always your countrymen," he blazed out growing very red and angry; "a set of clodhoppers who are obliged to earn their bread by the sweat of their brows. Mark my words, miss, you'll see the day when you would be very glad to share the inglorious ease of a member of the favored class denominated the English gentry." "No, sir," she answered with spirit, "I am heart and soul an American, and our differing nationalities would be an insuperable objection to the acceptance of your offer were there none other." At which, boiling with rage and disappointment, he hastily caught up his hat and left the house. Nell's conscience pricked her with the reminder that those last words were untrue; since, had Lyttleton been an American, and Kenneth an Englishman, it would have made no difference in her feelings toward either. Lyttleton hurried on through the streets and out into the country beyond, neither knowing nor caring in his rage and disappointment what direction he took. All he wanted was to avoid observation until he could recover his accustomed self-control; lest otherwise the story of his rejection should be bruited about and himself treated to scorn and ridicule in consequence. Unconsciously he struck into the trail that led to Old Town. The sun had set, but there was yet sufficient light to show him the stalwart figure of a huntsman with his gun on his shoulder and a string of birds in his hand, coming to meet him. Lyttleton stood still for a moment, debating in his own mind whether to go on or to retrace his steps, when the other called out in a well-known voice, "Dat you, mynheer? It ish goot you haf come. I have some dings der dell you." "What things, Hans?" asked Lyttleton moving on to meet his valet, to whom he had given permission for a day's sport in the woods. "I dells you pooty quick, mynheer," returned Hans close at his side; then went on to relate how he had fallen in with a party of Indians on their way to Old Town to take part in the coming ceremony, and that they had among them a white woman who seemed, from her looks and actions, to have been with them a long while. Lyttleton listened eagerly, and when Hans had finished his story, tried to elicit further information by asking questions in regard to the height, complexion, demeanor, and apparent age of the woman. When these had all been answered. "It may be she," he said musingly as if thinking aloud; then in a quick, determined way, "Hans, you must take me at once to see this woman. It may prove of the greatest importance that I should see and talk with her this very night." Hans, already weary and footsore with his day's tramp, would have greatly preferred to move on to Chillicothe and get a warm supper at the General Anthony Wayne, followed by a lounge on the bench before the bar-room door. Accordingly he showed some unwillingness to obey the order.