The younger sister sank into her seat colorless and astonished. Miss Peyton dropped the tea-tray she was lifting from the table, and Sarah sat with her purchases unheeded in her lap, speechless with surprise. Mr. Wharton was stupefied; but the captain, hesitating a moment from astonishment, sprang into the middle of the room, and exclaimed, as he tore off the instruments of disguise:
"I believe you, from my soul, and this tiresome imposition shall continue no longer. Yet I am at a loss to conceive in what manner you should know me."
"You really look so much better in your proper person, Captain Wharton," said Harper, with a slight smile, "I would advise you never to conceal it in future. There is enough to betray you, if other sources of detection were wanting." As he spoke, he pointed to a picture suspended over the mantelpiece, which exhibited the British officer in his regimentals.
"I had flattered myself," cried young Wharton, with a laugh, "that I looked better on the canvas than in a masquerade. You must be a close observer, sir?"
"Necessity has made me one," said Harper, rising from his seat.
Frances met him as he was about to withdraw, and, taking his hand between her own, said with earnestness, her cheeks mantling with the richest vermilion[28]: "You cannot--you will not betray my brother!"
For an instant Harper paused in silent admiration of the lovely pleader, and then, folding her hands on his breast, he replied solemnly: "I cannot, and I will not." He released her hands, and laying his own on her head, gently, continued: "If the blessing of a stranger can profit you, receive it." He turned, and bowing low retired, with a delicacy that was duly appreciated by those he quitted, to his own apartment.
The whole party were deeply impressed with the ingenuous[29] and solemn manner of the traveller, and all but the father found immediate relief in his declaration.
THE STRANGER'S WARNING AND THE PEDDLER'S RETURN.
On the afternoon of the succeeding day, the party were assembled in the parlor around the tea-table of Miss Peyton, when a change in the weather occurred. The rushing winds had ceased, the pelting of the storm was over, and, springing to the window, Frances saw a glorious ray of sunshine lighting up the opposite wood. The foliage glittered with the checkered beauties of the October leaf, reflecting back from the moistened boughs the richest lustre of an American autumn. In an instant, the piazza, which opened to the south, was thronged with the inmates of the cottage. The air was mild, balmy, and refreshing; in the east, clouds, which might be likened to the retreating masses of a discomfited[30] army, hung around the horizon in awful and increasing darkness. At a little elevation above the cottage, the thin vapor was still rushing towards the east with amazing velocity; while in the west the sun had broken forth and shed his parting radiance on the scene below, aided by the fullest richness of a clear atmosphere and a freshened herbage.