“And there’ll be much opportunity for vain ladies to have their heads turned!” quoth Tom, half in jest, half in disapproval.

“I know nothing of that,” says she, “but I do know whose sister will be the toast of the British Army before a month is past!”

If the king’s troops acquired a toast upon entering New York, the rebels had gained a volunteer upon leaving it.  One day, just before Washington’s army fled, Tom Faringfield came to me with a face all amusement.

“Who do you think is the latest patriot recruit?” cried he.  It was our custom to give the rebels ironically their own denomination of patriots.

“Not you nor I, at any rate,” said I.

“But one of the family, nevertheless.”

“Why, surely—­your father has not—­”

“Oh, no; only my father’s eldest.”

“Ned?”

“Nobody else.  Fancy Ned taking the losing side!  Oh, ’fore God, it’s true!  He came home in a kind of uniform to-day, and told father what he had done; the two had a long talk together in private after that; and though father never shows his thoughts, I believe he really has some hopes of Ned now.  The rebels made a lieutenant of him, on father’s account.  I wonder what his game is.”

“I make no doubt, to curry favour with his father.”

“Maybe.  But perhaps to get an excuse for leaving town, and a way of doing so.  I’ve heard some talk—­they say poor Sally Roberts’s condition is his work.”

“Very like.  Your brother is a terrible Adonis—­with ladies of a certain kind.”

“Not such an Adonis neither—­at least the Adonis that Venus courted in Shakespeare’s poem.  Rather a Jove, I should say.”

We did not then suspect the depth of Mr. Ned’s contrivance or duplicity.  He left New York with the rebels, and ’twas some time ere we saw, or heard of, him again.

And now at last several loyalist brigades were formed as auxiliaries to the royal army, and Tom and I were soon happy in the consciousness of serving our king, and in the possession of the green uniforms that distinguished the local from the regular force.  We were of Colonel Cruger’s battalion, of General Oliver De Lancey’s brigade, and both were so fortunate as to obtain commissions, Tom receiving that of lieutenant, doubtless by reason of his mother’s relationship to General De Lancey, and I being made an ensign, on account of the excellent memory in which my father was held by the loyal party.  Mr. Faringfield, like many another father in similar circumstances, was outwardly passive upon his son’s taking service against his own cause:  as a prudent man, he had doubtless seen from the first the advantage of having a son actually under arms for the king, for it gave him and his property such safety under the British occupation as even his lady’s loyalist affiliations might not have sufficed to do.  Therefore Tom, as a loyalist officer, was no less at home than formerly, in the house of his rebel father.  I know not how many such family situations were brought about by this strange war.