"But we do not ask for these kind favors," Mary interrupted him, with gentle dignity. "You mistake our present errand, sir. Madam Wallingford is in no need of such assistance. We are provided with what money we are like to need, as our good friend here must already know. The people at home"—and she faltered for one moment before she could go on. "It was indeed thought best that Madam Wallingford should be absent for a time; but she was glad to come hither for her son’s sake, who is in prison. We have come but to find him and to set him free, and we ask for your advice and help. Here is her letter," and Miss Hamilton hesitated and blushed with what seemed to both the gentlemen a most pretty confusion. "I ought to tell you, Mr. Fairfax—I think you should know, sir, that I am of the Patriots. My brother was with General Washington, with his own regiment, when I left home." Mr. George Fairfax bowed ceremoniously, but his eyes twinkled a little, and he took instant refuge in reading the letter. This was evidently an interesting case, but not without its difficulties. "The young gentleman in question also appears to be a Patriot," he said seriously, as he looked up at Mr. Davis. "In Miss Hamilton’s presence I must drop our usual term of ’rebel.’ Madam Wallingford professes herself unshaken in her hereditary allegiance to the Crown; but as for this young officer, her son, I am astonished to find that he has been on board the Ranger with that Paul Jones who is the terror of all our ports now, and the chief pest and scourge of our commerce here in England. ’T is a distressed parent, indeed. "You have the right of it," said the old British merchant, with great eagerness and reproach. Mr. Davis was not a man who found it easy to take the humorous point of view. "It seems that he was left ashore, that night of the attack upon Whitehaven, in the north, which you will well remember. He was caught by the town guard. You know that we captured one of the Ranger’s men? ’Twas this same young officer, and, though badly wounded, he was ordered to the Mill Prison, and is said to have arrived in a dying state. For his mother’s sake (and her face would distress any man’s heart), I try to believe that he is yet alive and lies there in the jail; but ’t is a sorry house of correction that he has come to through his own foolishness. They say he is like to have been hanged already." "Good God! what a melancholy story, and all England thinking that he deserves his fate!" exclaimed Fairfax. "I cannot see how anything can be done."