OOD-BYE, Hazel,”

“Good-bye, Starlight,”

“Good-bye, Josephine,”

“Good-bye, Cousin Harry,”

“Good-bye, Flutters.” Quite a medley of good-byes, to be sure, but no more than were needed, for Harry and Starlight, once more aboard of the “Gretchen,” were fast gliding out on to the river, and Josephine and Hazel and Flutters were being left behind on the wharf. The little prison-ship party had had their supper, and now Harry and Starlight were off for Paulus Hook; it was high time, too, that they were, since they had already been absent a day longer than Harry had planned, and Aunt Frances would naturally begin to feel worried. Little Flutters cut a queer figure as he stood there on the boating dock in the moonlight. Hans Van Wyck’s clothes, done up in a snug bundle, were already on their way back to their lawful owner, so that he had need to resort once more to the spangles and tinsel of his circus costume. By way of making up for insufficient clothing, Mrs. Boniface had thrown a shawl about him, one end of which Flutters allowed to trail behind, pinning the other close about his throat, with one corner thrown over his left shoulder.

“We must do something about some clothes for you, Flutters, right away,” Hazel remarked, as they turned to walk up from the wharf, when, amid the darkening shadows of the river, the “Gretchen’s” sail was no longer visible. “Starlight and I hoped Mrs. Van Wyck would offer to give us that suit of Hans’s to keep when he stopped to see her this afternoon and told her about you, but she did not propose anything of the kind. She only said ‘it was very inconvenient for Hans not to have them, and she hoped we’d manage to get them back to-night.’”

“And you have managed, haven’t you, Miss Hazel?” Flutters answered, as if the managing were a matter to be proud of; and, mimicking a sort of stage stride such as he had often witnessed in tragical circus pantomimes, he apparently bestowed far more attention on the sweep of his majestic train than on what Hazel was saying.

“Yes, of course, I sent them back; what else could I do?”—this last rather impatiently, because of Flutters’s exasperating unconcern __"but how are you going to manage without them is what I’d like to know.”..

Flutters gave Hazel a comical little look. “With tights and shawls, I s’pose, Miss Hazel, unless the Captain felt like as he could buy some for me.”

“No,” said Hazel decidedly; “I am not going to bother father ‘bout things like that, ‘specially now when he’s so worried and his life’s in danger.” This remark brought Flutters to a stand. Is the Captain’s life in danger, really, Miss Hazel?

“Yes, it is. Josephine said he received a very angry letter the other night from some old friends of his. They as much as told him that he must go away, and that his life wasn’t safe here; and lots of people are going, Flutters; people who, like father, have sided with King George.”

“Where are they going, Miss Hazel?”

“To England, most of them.”

“And will the Captain go?”

“No, Josephine thinks not. You see he built this house, Flutters, and he loves it, and he loves this country, too. Josephine says she believes he’ll just stay, and try and live the angry feeling down.”

“Miss Hazel,”.said Flutters, stopping to gather the trailing shawl over one arm, for he was ready now to give his whole mind to the matter in hand, “it’s a very puzzling thing ‘bout me. When Mr. Harry was telling those sad things of the prison-ship, I thought I was a Whig, and now when you are talking ‘bout the Captain, it seems as though I was a—a what do you call it?”

“A Loyalist, Flutters?”

“Yes, a Loyalist; but I reckon folks what has friends on both sides, had better not be anything particular.”

“Perhaps that would be best,” Hazel replied, smiling in spite of herself.

“Miss Hazel,” Flutters said, after a little pause, stopping and looking round him somewhat cautiously, as though he feared his question might be overheard, “did Starlight hear of any ‘quiries for me, when he was in the city this afternoon?”

Hazel nodded “Yes” in a most mysterious manner.

“There’s no danger of their ‘quiring round here, do you think?” and Hazel saw the involuntary little tremble shoot through Flutters’s frame.

“No, indeed, Flutters, and we wouldn’t give you up if they did. Mrs. Van Wyck told Starlight that a forlorn old man, who belonged to the circus, stopped at her gate and asked if she’d seen anything of a little mulatto boy what had deserted from the troupe, or knowed anything about him, and Mrs. Van Wyck said, ‘Lor’, no!’ never dreaming that her very own little Hans’s clothes were on that same little boy that very moment.”

“That must have been good old Bobbin,” answered Flutters, fairly chuckling over the thought of the entire success of his escape.

“Miss Hazel,” he added, after a moment’s thoughtful meditation, “I’ve been thinking how I might earn the money for my clothes by doing a little tumbling for folks round here, only I’m so awfully afraid of being heard of by the circus people.”

The suggestion instantly flashed a new scheme through Hazel’s mind.

“Flutters,” she said, very slowly and seriously, “I’ve—thought—of something. Yes, it’s the very thing. I’m going to town tomorrow, to see Colonel Hamilton about an important matter, and I’ll make all the ‘rangements.”

“‘Rangements ‘bout the clothes, Miss Hazel?”

“Yes, ‘rangements ‘bout everything; but, hush! ‘cause nobody else must know about it.” They had reached the porch where Mrs. Boniface was sitting, and Josephine was close behind them, which was the occasion for Hazel’s “Hush” and so little Flutters tumbled into bed half an hour later, still in ignorance as to what the scheme of his “little Mistress” might be, but with perfect confidence in her ability to make any arrangements under the sun.





Joe Ainsworth found his little friend waiting in the sunshine the next morning, and, almost without intimation from him, the leaders came to a standstill, and Hazel mounted to her seat beside him. “Business in town?” ventured Joe.

“Colonel Hamilton’s, please,” all intent on getting comfortably seated.

“Oh!” exclaimed Joe, with elevated eyebrows, “haven’t fixed that matter up yet, eh?”

“Not yet. I haven’t had time to see to it until to-day.”

“Haven’t had time,” said Joe, with a significant smile.

“No, I haven’t, really. Yesterday I had to go on a sailing party and the day before to the circus.”

“My lands, Miss Hazel! I guess if you had to drive this Albany coach every day of your life, week in and week out, and was ever able to take so much as a day off for a circus or a sailing party, you would call that having lots of time. I would, I can tell ye.”

“Well, then, perhaps it was because I couldn’t do both things, Joe, so I chose the sailing party and the circus.”

“I don’t blame you, Miss Hazel. Besides, there can’t be anything very pleasant for such a loyal little Red-Coat as you to look forward to, in calling on our American Colonel.”

“I’m not afraid of any American Colonel,” with the air of a grand duchess.

“No, of course not, Miss Hazel, but I’d have a care to that little tongue of yours.”

Hazel did not answer. She would not have allowed many people to offer that unsolicited advice without some sort of a rejoinder, but she had always a most kindly side toward Joe Ainsworth, not entirely accounted for, either, by the fact of the free rides.

For some reason or other the coach horses kept up a good pace that morning, and it was not long before they came to a halt at Hazel’s destination.

Colonel Hamilton’s law office was in just such another wide-porched double house as the Starlight homestead; and, like it, had been vacated by its rightful owner during the progress of the war, and so had shared the similar fate of being immediately claimed by the English. They were most comfortable-looking dwellings, those old colonial homesteads, cheery and clean without, in their buff coats of paint lined off with generous bands of white, and most hospitable within, with their wide halls running from front to back straight through them. It seemed a shame that such a homelike place should ever be converted into a mere bevy of offices, but, after all, that is but one of many desecrations that follow closely in the train of wretched war. The very sight of the house, and the evident misuse to which it had been put, stirred Hazel’s indignation. She did not know who had lived there, but she felt very sorry for them all the same.

It chanced to be her good fortune to find Colonel Alexander Hamilton alone in his office, something that did not often happen in the experience of that great man, and it was also perhaps her good fortune to be altogether unconscious of how truly great he was, else she might not have marched so boldly into his presence and told her story in such a frank and fearless manner. Yet, wh............