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 that she caught a good look at them. Then, in acute anazement, she stumbled back.

"Why, 'tis Squire Briggs!" she ejaculated. "And that man Hawtree!"

"You know them?" asked Von Garten curiously.

"Squire Briggs is a neighbor of ours," answered Mehitable. "And Hawtree came up in the coach from Millburn with us. I did not like him."

Von Garten studied her flushed young face.

"I wonder," murmured Mehitable absently, "I wonder what Squire Briggs is doing up here?"

Somehow the spare, furtive, rather sneaking face of her father's neighbor boded no good, she felt.

"You do not like him, either?" asked Von Garten softly.

But Mehitable glanced up suddenly, keenly. This, she all at once remembered, was an enemy to her country, and as such, no matter how frank and attractive she found him to be personally, she must be upon her guard against. So she relapsed into a silence she would not break, watching over her shoulder, uneasily, the door by which the two unpleasant visitors must enter.

At last she saw them, saw the thin, stoop-shouldered figure of Squire Briggs bend awkwardly over Cousin Eliza's hand as the man Hawtree briefly introduced him, saw them immediately look her way and, with a heart that suddenly throbbed, realized that with then hostess they were turning toward her.

"Oh," she said, under her breath, "isn't there some place I can hide?hide?" [sic]

But Von Garten laughed, thinking her joking, and