“Thou ’rt not content to give us thy good wishes, Miss Janice,” he said, motioning to the guard to let the two go free, “but addest the aid of thy presence as well.”

“And were within an ace of getting shot thereby,” complained the squire, still not entirely over his fright.  “Egad, general, we were right between the shooting at one minute, and heard the bullets shrieking all about us.”

“But so was his Excellency, dadda,” protested Janice.  “Oh, General Washington,” she added, “when you rode up so close to the British, and I saw them level their guns, I was like to have fell off my horse with fear for you.”

“Ay,” remarked the squire, for once unprecedentedly diplomatic.  “The lass stood her own peril as steadily as ever I did, but she turned white as a feather when the infantry fired at you, and, woman-like, burst into tears the moment the smoke had lifted enough to show you still unhurt.”

“And now has tears in her eyes because I was not shot, I suppose,” Washington responded, with a smiling glance at the maiden.

“No, your Excellency,” denied the girl, in turn smiling through the tears.  “But dadda is quite wrong:  ’t was not anxiety for you that made me weep, but fear that they might have killed Blueskin!”

Washington laughed at the girl’s quip.  “It seems my vanity is so great that I am doomed ever to mistake the source of your interest.  Come,” he added, “the last time we met I was beholden to you for a breakfast.  Let me repay the kindness by giving you a meal.  One of my family reports that the lunch of the officers’ mess of the Fortieth was just on the table at the provost’s house when our movements gave them other occupation.  ’T is fair plunder, and I bid you to share in it.”

During the repast the father and daughter told how they had come to be mixed in the conflict, and the squire grumbled over the prospect before him.

“I’ve no place to go but Greenwood, and now they threat to take my lass to New York over this harebrain scrape she’s got us all into.”

“’T would be gross ingratitude,” asserted Washington, “if we let Miss Meredith suffer for her service to us, and ’t is a simple matter to save her.  Get me pen, ink, and a blank parole, Baylor.”

The paper brought, Washington filled in a few words in his flowing script, and then placed it before the girl.  “Sign here,” he told her, and when it was done he took back the document.  “You are now a prisoner of war, released on parole, Miss Janice,” he explained, “and pledged not to go more than ten miles from Greenwood without first applying to me for permission.  Furthermore, upon due notice, you are again to render yourself my captive.”

Janice, with a shy glance, which had yet the touch of impertinence that was ingrain in her, replied, “I was that the first time I met your Excellency, and have been so ever since.”

An end was put to the almost finished meal at this point by the clatter of hoots, followed by the hurried entrance of Brereton.  “General St. Clair sends word, sir, that a column of British is advanced as far as Stony Brook, and is—­” There the aide caught sight of Janice, and stopped speaking in his surprise.