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 "But why, my dear?" Mehitable gently drew her around. "Do ye know, Tabbie, I vow part o' your trouble is anticipating it! Always ye do look on the dark side o' things. Ye said that ye had suspicioned your brother being a Tory, despite his telling you he was patriot. Well, mayhap events would have happened as they did, yet would ye have been spared days, weeks o' suffering, had ye not brooded over it. Ye not only meet trouble halfway, but ye take a stagecoach to get ye there quicker!"

"A stagecoach?" Poor Tabitha looked at Mehitable without humor.

"In your mind, child," responded Mehitable, laughing and impatient. "A make-believe stagecoach!"

"But, Hitty, I can't help being that way," said Tabitha gently.

Mehitable looked at her for a long moment and finally sighed. "I fear ye be right," she returned. "But I do feel sorry for ye, Tabbie!"

About three o'clock that afternoon, Mehitable and Charity, restless from confinement, started out through the blizzard. They had seized upon the slight excuse of borrowing some thread for Mistress Lindsley from her friend, the housekeeper at headquarters.

"And mayhap we could see the son o' Mistress Ford's—Timothy, who be home wounded," sug-