“There is something frightful in the calm of this valley, Beulah!” exclaimed Maud one Sunday, as she and her sister looked out of the library window amid the breathing stillness of the forest, listening to the melancholy sound of the bell that summoned them to prayers.  “There is a frightful calm over this place, at an hour when we know that strife and bloodshed are so active in the country.  Oh! that the hateful congress had never thought of making this war!”

“Evert writes me all is well, Maud; that the times will lead to good; the people are right; and America will now be a nation—­in time, he thinks, a great, and a very great nation.”

“Ah!  It is this ambition of greatness that hurries them all on!  Why can they not be satisfied with being respectable subjects of so great a country as England, that they must destroy each other for this phantom of liberty?  Will it make them wiser, or happier, or better than they are?”

Thus reasoned Maud, under the influence of one engrossing sentiment.  As our tale proceeds, we shall have occasion to show, perhaps, how far was that submission to events which she inculcated, from the impulses of her true character.  Beulah answered mildly, but it was more as a young American wife: 

“I know Evert thinks it all right, Maud; and you will own he is neither fiery nor impetuous.  If his cool judgment approve of what has been done, we may well suppose that it has not been done in too much haste, or needlessly.”

“Think, Beulah,” rejoined Maud, with an ashen cheek, and in trembling tones, “that Evert and Robert may, at this very moment, be engaged in strife against each other.  The last messenger who came in, brought us the miserable tidings that Sir William Howe was landing a large army near New York, and that the Americans were preparing to meet it.  We are certain that Bob is with his regiment; and his regiment we know is in the army.  How can we think of this liberty, at a moment so critical?”

Beulah did not reply; for in spite of her quiet nature, and implicit confidence in her husband, she could not escape a woman’s solicitude.  The colonel had promised to write at every good occasion, and that which he promised was usually performed.  She thought, and thought rightly, that a very few days would bring them intelligence of importance; though it came in a shape she had little anticipated, and by a messenger she had then no desire to see.

In the meantime, the season and its labours advanced.  August was over, and September with its fruits had succeeded, promising to bring the year round without any new or extraordinary incidents to change the fortunes of the inmates of the Hutted Knoll.  Beulah had now been married more than a twelvemonth, and was already a mother; and of course all that time had elapsed since the son quitted his father’s house.  Nick, too, had disappeared shortly after his return from Boston; and throughout this eventful summer, his dark, red countenance had not been seen in the valley.