“Nay dearest Julia, this pleasantry is unseasonable.  I certainly do intend, provided I am exchanged in time to return here with the army, which I doubt not will be instantly dispatched to restore our blighted fame, and then I shall claim you as my own.  Will you then hesitate to become mine?  Even as the daughter forsakes the home of her father without regret, to pass her days with him who is to her father, mother, all the charities of life, in short—­so should she forsake her native land, adopting in preference that to which her husband is attached by every tie of honor, and of duty.  However, let us hope that ere long, the folly of this war will be seen, and that the result of such perception, will be a peace founded on such permanent basis, that each shall be bound, by an equal tie of regard, to the home of the other.”

“Let us hope so,” eagerly replied Julia.  “But what has become of our friend, Miss Montgomerie, in all the confusion of this day.  Or am I right in supposing that she and her uncle, are of the number of those embarked in my cousin’s vessel?”

The name of the interesting American, coupled as it was, with that of one infinitely more dear to her caused Gertrude for the first time, to look up in the face of the officer, in expectation of his reply.  She was struck by the sadden paleness that came over his features again, as en the former occasion, when allusion was made to her at his recent visit to Amherstburgh.  He saw that his emotion was remarked, and fought to bide it under an appearance of unconcern, as he replied: 

“Neither Miss Montgomerie nor her uncle are embarked.  The latter, I regret to say, has been one of the few victims who have fallen.”

“What! dead—­that excellent kind old man—­dead, demanded the listen, nearly in the same breath?”

“No; not dead—­but I fear with little hope of life.  He was desperately wounded soon after day-break this morning, and when I saw hi half an hour afterwards, he had been given over by the surgeons.”

“Poor old Major,” sighed Gertrude; “I felt when he was here the other day, that I could bare loved him almost as my owe father.  How broken-hearted Miss Montgomerie must be at his loss.”

A sneer of bitterness passed over the fine features of the American, as he replied with emphasis: 

“Nay, dear Gertrude, year sympathies there are but ill bestowed.  Miss Montgomerie’s heart will scarcely sustain the injury you seem to apprehend.”

“What mean you Ernest?” demanded Julia, with eagerness.  “How is it that you judge thus harshly of her character.  How, in short, do you pretend to enter into her most secret feelings, and yet deny all but a general knowledge of her?  What can you possibly knew of her heart?”

“I merely draw my inferences from surmise,” replied the Colonel, after a few moments of pause.  “The fact it, I have the vanity to imagine myself a correct reader of character, and my reading of Miss Montgomery’s has not been the happiest.”