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 from Morris Town wi' a message to Master Hedden. I questioned the rider concerning the young British prisoner—for I thought his case a very sad one, indeed—and the rider happened to know of him and told me"

"Aye, told you?" Sally moistened her dry lips.

"He told me the young man would live," proclaimed Master Chapman triumphantly. "He had passed the crisis o' the plague this day and was on the mend. But why"—the good minister paused and looked down teasingly into the eager face—"art so interested i' the red uniform? Dost not like blue and buff much better?"

"We-ell," Sally hesitated, "mayhap—the—the war will some day end—and—uniforms will go out o' fashion, sir!"

Mistress Van Houten, turning back from her contemplation of the few scattered lights that proclaimed the existence of New York Town, wondered at the minister's sudden amused laugh as he bowed to Sally and herself and, leaping upon his horse, rode away.

Sally and the lady were met by a sleepy-eyed, yawning Cudje when they finally ascended the steps of Mistress Van Houten's New York house. Cudje grinned, however, and reached for Sally's heavy reticule.

Leading the way into a fine, big bedroom at the rear of the second floor, Mistress Van Houten