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“Fo’ God, Missy Thankful, them sogers is g’wine into camp in the road, I reckon, for they’s jest makin’ theysevs free afo’ the house, and they’s an officer in the company-room with his spurs cocked on the table, readin’ a book.”

A quick flame leaped into Thankful’s cheek, and her pretty brows knit themselves over darkening eyes. She arose from her work no longer the moody girl, but an indignant goddess, and, pushing the servant aside, swept down the stairs, and threw open the door.

An officer sitting by the fire in an easy, lounging attitude that justified the servant’s criticism, arose instantly with an air of evident embarrassment and surprise that was, however, as quickly dominated and controlled by a gentleman’s breeding.

“I beg your pardon,” he said, with a deep inclination of his handsome head, “but I had no idea that there was any member of this household at home–at least, a lady.” He hesitated a moment, catching in the raising of her brown-fringed lids a sudden revelation of her beauty, and partly losing his composure. “I am Major Van Zandt: I have the honor of addressing–“

“Thankful Blossom,” said Thankful a little proudly, divining with a woman’s swift instinct the cause of the major’s hesitation. But her triumph was checked by a new embarrassment visible in the face of the officer at the mention of her name.

“Thankful Blossom,” repeated the officer quickly. “You are, then, the daughter of Abner Blossom?”

“Certainly,” said Thankful, turning her inquiring eyes upon him. “He will be here betimes. He has gone only to Morristown.” In a new fear that had taken possession of her, her questioning eyes asked, “Has he not?”

The officer, answering her eyes rather than her lips, came toward her gravely. “He will not return to-day, Mistress Thankful, nor perhaps even to-morrow. He is–a prisoner.”

Thankful opened her brown eyes aggressively on the major. “A prisoner–for what?”

“For aiding and giving comfort to the enemy, and for harboring spies,” replied the major with military curtness.

Mistress Thankful’s cheek flushed slightly at the last sentence: a recollection of the scene on the porch and the baron’s stolen kiss flashed across her, and for a moment she looked as guilty as if the man before her had been a witness to the deed. He saw it, and misinterpreted her confusion.

“Belike, then,” said Mistress Thankful, slightly raising her voice, and standing squarely before the major, “belike, then, I should be a prisoner too; for the guests of this house, if they be spies, were MY guests, and, as my father’s daughter, I was their hostess; ay, man, and right glad to be the hostess of such gallant gentlemen,–gentlemen, I warrant, too fine to insult a defenceless girl; gentlemen spies that did not cock their boots on the table, or turn an honest farmer’s house into a tap-room.”

An expression of half pain, half amusement, covered the face of the major, but he made no other reply than by a profound and graceful bow. Courteous and deprecatory as it was, it apparently exasperated Mistress Thankful only the more.

“And pray who are these spies, and who is the informer?” said Mistress Thankful, facing the soldier, with one hand truculently placed on her flexible hip, and the other slipped behind her. “Methinks ’tis only honest we should know when and how we have entertained both.”

“Your father, Mistress Thankful,” said Major Van Zandt gravely, “has long been suspected of favoring the enemy; but it has been the policy of the commander-in-chief to overlook the political preferences of non-combatants, and to strive to win their allegiance to the good cause by liberal privileges. But when it was lately discovered that two strangers, although bearing a pass from him, have been frequenters of this house under fictitious names–“

“You mean Count Ferdinand and the Baron Pomposo,” said Thankful quickly,–“two honest gentlefolk; and if they choose to pay their devoirs to a lass–although, perhaps, not a quality lady, yet an honest girl–“