"We had unexpected guests, sweetheart," said Thankful: "the count
just arrived."

"That infernal Hessian!" He stopped, and gazed questioningly into
her face. The moon looked upon her at the same time: the face was
as sweet, as placid, as truthful, as her own. Possibly these two
inconstants understood each other.

"Nay, Allan, he is not a Hessian, but an exiled gentleman from
abroad,--a nobleman--"

"There are no noblemen now," sniffed the trooper contemptuously.
"Congress has so decreed it. All men are born free and equal."

"But they are not, Allan," said Thankful, with a pretty trouble in
her brows: "even cows are not born equal. Is yon calf that was
dropped last night by Brindle the equal of my red heifer whose
mother come by herself in a ship from Surrey? Do they look equal?"

"Titles are but breath," said Capt. Brewster doggedly. There was
an ominous pause.

"Nay, there is one nobleman left," said Thankful; "and he is my
own,--my nature's nobleman!"

Capt. Brewster did not reply. From certain arch gestures and
wreathed smiles with which this forward young woman accompanied her
statement, it would seem to be implied that the gentleman who stood
before her was the nobleman alluded to. At least, he so accepted
it, and embraced her closely, her arms and part of her mantle