But as you are going into the city yourself, I depend upon you to keep her with you until you can place her safely in Gulian Verplanck's hands.

It was a tiny apartment; for when Gulian Verplanck brought his young bride home he had added a room to the wing below, and as it greatly enlarged their bedroom, the happy idea had struck him to throw up a partition, corner-ways, which formed an irregularly shaped room opening on the passage, and gave Clarissa her own cherished den in that great house of square rooms and high ceilings.

Clarissa Verplanck in that resembled none of her family, and the one reason for her father's and aunt's anxiety about her was that she was thought the image of a sister of her mother who fulfilled the prophecy.

I am on my way to the city to intercede for my brother, Captain Seymour's exchange, and, for the once, I do not mind telling you that my companion is Mistress Betty Wolcott, consigned to my care by her father, General Wolcott, as her sister, Mrs. Verplanck, lies ill in New York, and she goes there to see her, but she travels as my maid.

'Tis I, Betty Wolcott; have I outgrown your recollection?" "Betty, indeed," replied Gulian Verplanck, lifting her off the horse, "and right glad am I to welcome you.

"Verplanck," called Geoffrey, as his friend was about to follow her, "I shall go directly back to the city, for Sir Henry has to make ready dispatches for England and will need me.

" "I accept the escort gladly," said Verplanck.

" Betty and Mrs. Seymour had been ushered into a small bedchamber, where they were making some slight changes of dress when Gulian Verplanck knocked at the door and informed them that the coach would shortly be ready for the continuation of their journey.

Betty followed him back into the waiting-room, where a good fire was burning, and Verplanck sought to find a seat for her near the hearth.

"I am warmed enough," he said, as Verplanck gave brief thanks; "besides there is room here.

"Stay here till the coach is ready, Betty," said Verplanck.

"Where is Mr. Verplanck?" "Here," answered Gulian, from the other door.

All these thoughts and many more were crowding Betty's brain as she ran down the steps of the Verplanck mansion and followed Peter toward Queen Street, where Kitty lived.

The drawing-room in the Verplanck mansion was high of ceiling, a spacious, stately room, and its quaint, straight-backed chairs, stuffed ottomans, and carved mahogany sofas were the acme of elegance of those days.

She knew full well that any suggestion of England and English ways would appeal to Gulian, and Yorke, who followed closely at her side, threw the potent weight of his opinion in the scale by saying quietly: "I am told your slaves have the very poetry of motion, Verplanck; permit me to escort Mistress Betty to the servants' hall.

The Verplanck slaves, some twelve of them, were augmented in numbers by those of the Ludlow, De Lancey, and De Peyster families, and half filled the spacious kitchen us they stood back in rows, courtesying and bowing, showing their white teeth in smiles and low laughter, as they recognized some "young massa," or "ole madam" among the gentlemen and dames who smiled back upon their faithful, kindly faces.

" The taunt stung Verplanck, for, like many of the more liberal Tories, he had deeply deplored the tragic ending of the gallant Hale, although forced to regard it as one of the stern necessities of war.

I send my Love to You know Who." There were others of the Verplanck household who slept late that morning.

Gulian's strict sense of justice told him that Betty was right in seizing the means at hand to rescue her brother, but that did not lessen his irritation at being used for anything which appertained to the Whig cause, for Gulian Verplanck was a Tory to the backbone.

" "So do we all;but, Verplanck, I came on a different errand to-day than politics.

But he only said aloud, "Thank you, Verplanck, I am delighted to receive your sanction.

" "I will not," said Geoffrey firmly, as the door closed behind Verplanck.

It would be vain to describe Betty's emotion as from the windows of the Verplanck mansion she watched the troops and the civil concourse, and realized that at last, after long years of heroic endurance, of gallant fighting, of many privations, the freedom of the Colonies was an accomplished fact.

And then there came a pause, when voices were hushed, and down the oak staircase came Kitty, led by Gulian Verplanck (her nearest male relative), wearing a white satin petticoat (though somewhat scanty to our ideas in width and length), and over it a, train of silver brocade, stiff and rustling, while a long scarf of Mechlin lace covered her pretty dark head and hung in soft folds down her back.

On the other hand the regulars on the Southern side comprised not only ten Virginians, all of the six South Carolinians, except three of their number on the punishment questions, all of the four Georgians, three North Carolinians, two Marylanders and one Kentuckian, but in addition Tenney of New Hampshire, Schuneman, Van Rensselaer and Verplanck of New York on all but the punishment questions.