“I suppose he is.”

“Surely he is your friend.”

“In war there are no friends among the enemy, child, and no enemy among friends.  We are simply Americans or British.”

“Yet, father, there are personal ties stronger than loyalty to nation or political party.”

The old man heard her argument with evident anxiety.  He loved his little sea-waif as ardently as ever father loved a child, and for five years he fancied and feared she loved the lieutenant of the Xenophon.

“True, child, you speak the truth, yet my heart tells me that we cannot trust to friendship now, seeing that this quarrel has grown so bitter.”  He was sorry to say this, for he felt that every word he uttered was like a dagger at the heart of Morgianna.  After a painful silence, the old, white-haired seaman added, “Forgive me, Morgianna; but I am an old man, and I may not look at things as you do.  I love my country and her flag.  I have seen our poor sailors too often enslaved to be a friend to any Englishman while the war lasts.”

“What do you mean, father?”

“You love him, Morgianna.  I felt it, I knew it all along, but I couldn’t help it.  I knew I ought to do something, but, child, I didn’t know what to do.  If you had had a mother she could have advised you, but I didn’t.”

“Father, you talk so strangely; what do you mean?”

“I knew all along, my child, that you loved him; but Lieutenant Matson is a bad one, even if he is the son of my old friend.  I could see the devil glinting in his eyes, and the mock of his smile, when he met the young Ohioan here five years ago.  He’s a bad man accompanied with foul weather wherever he goes, and I know it just so long as I know the cat’s paw, the white creeping mist, like a dirty thing which makes me cry out to my crew, ‘All hands to reef!  Quick!  All hands to reef!’” The old man was silent for a moment, smoking his pipe, while his eyes were on the floor.  Had he looked up, he would have seen a decidedly mischievous look in the face of Morgianna, which certainly did not indicate that she was seriously affected.  After a few moments, without looking up, the old man with a sigh continued: 

“Ah, my little maid, if you could only have listened a bit to the noble Ohioan;—­if it could have been him instead of Matson, love and patriotism could have gone hand in hand.  The night we went to the cliff, I thought you did like him; but it was not to be.  ’Tis dreadful! dreadful! why did God make woman so?  Poor Fernando; there was good love going a-begging and getting nothing for it but a frown and a hard word; while—­” he did not finish the sentence, for a pair of white arms were put around his neck, and a voice as sweet as the rippling music of the hillside brook said: 

“Never fret yourself, father, for Morgianna loves you first of all and best of all,” and she slipped on his knee and kissed away the anxious cloud gathering on his brow.  The old man was quite overcome by this caress, and before he could make any answer there came a heavy tread on the piazza, a heavy knock, and a moment later a servant announced, Tris Penrose and John Burrel.  They were admitted and Penrose, who had made another reconnoisance that afternoon in his fishing yacht, said: