With thee conversing, I forget all time;
All seasons and their change. —Milton.

This was the beginning of an acquaintance between Major Gordon and the heiress of Sweetwater, which soon ripened into intimacy. Of the dangers of such a friendship, to the gentleman at least, he was in part ignorantly, in part willfully blind. Bewitched by the grace, wit and beauty of Kate, not less than by the sweetness of her disposition as displayed in a thousand home ways, Major Gordon abandoned himself to the pleasure of her society, forgetting the barrier which fortune had placed between them, in making him poor and a patriot, but Kate an heiress and a royalist. Yet, to do him full justice, he did not think of the passion that was overmastering him, or the probabilities of its success. Love was a new thing to him. The law first, and the camp afterwards, had been his mistress hitherto. He little suspected, therefore, how necessary Kate was becoming to his happiness. He did not know he was in love. But an irresistible fascination drew him to Sweetwater, at first almost daily, and finally punctually every morning. Often, indeed, he left the Forks, intending to ride elsewhere; but invariably he found himself in Kate’s presence; and at last he ceased even to invent excuses, such as bringing her a bunch of wild-flowers, a book, or a bit of news, as originally had been his custom. When away from her he felt a void, which only her presence satisfied. He rode, walked, boated on the lake, chatted or read with her, accordingly, as the weather permitted, or circumstances allowed.

Mrs. Warren was almost invariably present when these interviews took place at Sweetwater. She generally sat knitting, in a corner, occasionally joining in the conversation, and always managing on such occasions, to bring in her cousin, Lord Danville. Her connexion with that nobleman was a source of pride indescribable to her. It elevated her and the whole Aylesford family, in her opinion, into an entirely different sphere from that of the provincials about her. She felt annoyed, therefore, at the frequency of Major Gordon’s visits, which promised an intimacy that, some day, she thought might become troublesome. He was very pleasant as a temporary acquaintance, she reasoned, but having no peer for a cousin, quite too plebeian for a friend. Her manner accordingly grew less cordial daily to their visitor, though it never ceased to be civil; nor did the good dame neglect to attire herself in all her state—she “owed it to her family,” she said, “even when not to her guests.” Meantime, also, she studiously avoided making a parade of her royalist sympathies, professing, as at the first interview, to be entirely neutral, and little dreaming that her guest saw through her poorly acted part, and amused himself secretly at her weakness and self-confidence.

Kate, all this while, was as gay, as frank, and as bewitching as ever. Sometimes she was so full of spirits, that serious conversation was impossible. On such occasions, she made a jest of everything, especially of love; for often, in reading the poets with her guest, that fertile theme came up. As merry and willful girls will, she delighted to play at fence with this mysterious passion, which she secretly felt would some day be her master. How she made sport of the meekness of Desdemona; of the fainting of Rosalind; of poor, deserted Imogen’s melancholy. “She would never break her heart for a man, not she,” she would say, glancing roguishly at her guest. “There must be a latent weakness in the women who had furnished the types of these characters to Shakespeare; for she supposed some women were so foolish, as everybody said Shakespeare never violated nature.” As for Amelia, the heroine of the novel she was reading, and about which she and Major Gordon had daily battles, “never was there such a silly little thing.” “Why,” she said, “that good for nothing husband wasn’t worth a single one of poor Amelia’s tears. Booth was a brute; and if men were like him, she wondered women didn’t—” But here she stopped with a blush, on seeing her guest’s wondering look; and, with a pretty little laugh, added, “Heigho! wasn’t it ridiculous, anyhow, for her to be talking of love, of which she knew nothing, and never cared to.”

At other times she would be quite serious. On these occasions Major Gordon would secretly admire the sound sense of her father’s views on female education. For Kate could converse on subjects of which few women, at that day, knew anything: and many an animated discussion took place between her and her guest. In truth, her visitor liked to engage her in debate, for he loved, at such times, to watch the animation of her eye, the heightened color of her cheek, and the dexterity with which she defended her cause, often forcing him to a positive capitulation.

Kate’s real opinion as to the war remained, all this time, a puzzle to Major Gordon. Her face, indeed, glowed with enthusiasm, whenever a gallant deed was mentioned, whether the actors were Americans or royalists; but she never expressed any sympathy for the cause for which he had drawn his sword, except sometimes in jest, when she wished to tease her aunt. In the pride of birth, which so eminently distinguished Mrs. Warren, Kate confessed that she shared. “Let philosophers say what they will about the rights of man,” were her words, “I feel that it is something to be descended from heroes who fought with Richard at Askalon, and withstood the chivalry of France at Agincourt.”

Yet, in her demeanor to those more lowly born, there was nothing of the hauteur which might have been supposed to accompany such opinions. There was an old negro woman who had once been a slave in the family, and who, in that capacity, had often assisted to take care of Kate when an infant. To this poor creature, who now lived alone in a small cabin about a mile from Sweetwater, our heroine was as affable and kind as if she had been her own flesh and blood.

“Yonder is Aunt Chloe’s cabin,” said Kate, one day, when riding with Major Gordon, “and I must stop awhile. The poor thing will fancy I have grown proud, since I went abroad, if I don’t draw rein and ask her how she does. She was at the house the other day, and would have amused you, I am sure. The paper-hangings on the drawing-room seemed to strike her fancy particularly. She had never before seen wall paper, for when she lived with us the rooms were painted. But where can she be?”

As Kate spoke, they drew up in front of a small clearing, about two acres in extent, with a log hut in front. A few cabbages, a bean-vine or two, a mock orange, and half a dozen gaudy sun-flowers, constituted the garden. As no signs of the occupant appeared, Kate nimbly jumped to the ground, and throwing her bridle over one of the gate-posts, entered, beckoning to her companion to follow.

The door stood wide open, and on reaching it, the aged dame was seen inside, holding her dog in her hands, intently occupied in alternately dipping his paw into a bucket of some kind of colored dye and making marks with it in regular order, on the white-washed wall of square-trimmed logs.

We have said that the crone, already nearly deaf with age, did not hear the guests. Kate watched her with a puzzled look, for a while, and then going close up to her, she put her light-gloved hand on the old woman’s shoulder, and said, in her musical voice, but with something of astonishment—

“What are you doing, aunty? Have you lost your wits?”

The dame, thus apostrophized, turned, and, after disdainfully regarding her visitors as if scorning their ignorance, answered tartly, turning to her work,

“Chile, I’se paperin’ de wall. Dis makes a fus-rate lion’s claw. Don’t yer see? Dar!”

And, giving a finishing touch to her work, she stepped back admiringly, as a Landseer may be supposed to do, when he has completed a masterpiece.

The first instinct of Kate was to laugh heartily. But regard for the feelings of her poor old nurse, who would have been mortified inexpressibly, induced her to restrain herself, though her eyes literally ran over with suppressed glee, as she glanced at her companion, who, in turn, could scarcely keep his merriment under control. The visit, after a few kind inquiries from Kate, terminated by our heroine slipping a dollar into the hands of the crone, a gratuity which Major Gordon secretly doubled as the fair girl rode off ahead.

When the cabin was fairly out of hearing, however, the woods rung with the silvery laughter of Kate. At last, her merriment subsided, and she said—

“It’s hardly fair to laugh at poor old Chloe. She only does what all the world’s doing. Her poke-berry juice and dog’s paw are but an humbler way of aping the luxuries of the great.”

Major Gordon made no answer, but said to himself— “Her heart is right, even where her education is wrong.”