“No, she’ll do no such thing,” interposed Mistress Eveleigh; “she’ll give them all to you.”  The tone was so serious that Elizabeth cried, indignantly,—­

“Cousin Patience, how can you?”

“I suppose she likes to tease you,” retorted Katie, still laughing, “and so do I. It’s so funny to see you wake out of a revery and find yourself.”

“And not find myself, you mean,” returned Elizabeth, joining in with a ripple of merriment.

“Master Waldo knows all about the red-skins,” said Archdale to his opposite neighbor; “he had the pleasure of shooting one last winter.”

“Did you?” exclaimed Mrs. Eveleigh, while Harwin looked at the young fellow with a new interest.  “How did it happen?  Tell us about it.”

“Yes, tell us about it,” cried Katie, turning toward Waldo.  But Elizabeth was still looking at Archdale.  Suppose the shooting had been necessary, how could he speak of killing a human being as he would an animal, and then lean back and look at Mr. Waldo with a smile on his face?

Kenelm Waldo, on his part, gazed at the speaker in astonishment.

“’Pon honor,” he cried, “I never killed a red-skin in my life, or even had a shot at one.  Oh, I know now what he means; he is talking of a fox that I shot two miles from his house, one that you ought to have secured yourself, Mr. Archdale.  This was the way I did it, the best way.”

When he had finished his account, Katie said:—­

“I have a plan for amusing ourselves.  Let us make every one tell a story, and we’ll lay forfeits on the person that doesn’t give us an interesting one.  Mistress Eveleigh, please begin.”

“That is rather arbitrary, Mistress Katie, with no warning,” returned that lady, smiling.  “But since we’ve been talking about the Indians, I will tell you something that my mother did once before she was married, while she was living down on the Cape.”

“What a pity, Katie, you did not keep Mistress Eveleigh until the last,” cried Archdale; “I know she will have the best story of us all.”

“You have too high estimation of my powers,” returned Mrs. Eveleigh, flattered; “but if I do well,” she added, “it must be remembered that none of you have had forty-five years in which to find one.”

The story, like a thousand others of that time, was of the presence of mind and courage of one of the early settlers of America, and was listened to with the attention it deserved.  All, with one exception, were outspoken in admiration of its heroine.

“You say nothing, Mistress Royal,” said Waldo; “but it may be you’ve heard it before, since you and Mistress Eveleigh are in the same house.”

“Yes,” she answered, “I have heard it before.”  She moved her head quickly as she spoke, and as the moonlight struck her face, Archdale fancied that he saw a moist brightness in her eyes.  But certainly no tear fell, and when the next moment Katie declared it Elizabeth’s turn for a story, she told some trifling anecdote that had in it neither sentiment nor heroism.  It was laughable though, and was about to receive its deserts of praise when at Archdale’s first word Elizabeth cried, eagerly:—­