When dinner was concluded, Burr met the beautiful English girl in a passage, who stopped him, and reaching out a penknife, said:
"This is, I think, the property of Major Burr, left on the house-top this morning, when he so kindly relinquished the telescope for a silly foreigner, who had not the good manners to thank him a he descended. That silly foreigner has punished herself by sitting in another place at table, and thus denying herself those pleasing attentions, from a brave and noble-minded young officer, which she has justly forfeited by her conduct towards him."
"Ah! but, my dear Miss Moncrieffe, it is not yourself whom you punish," cried Burr, seizing her hand hastily; "it is that young officer, whose merits your generous nature prompts you to estimate far above their value. You punish HIM, Miss Moncrieffe, when you place it out of his power to be near you—to attend to your wishes."
"Say you so? Oh! then, that alters the case," replied she, deeply blushing, and then added with a smile:
"Nothing would have given me greater happiness than to have kept company with Major Burr on top of the house, but he must remember that I came up last—I felt as if it might appear that I knew you were there."
Burr felt the force of this apology, and wondered that he had not given the circumstances of their meeting due weight before. Miss Moncrieffe had been surprised at finding Burr on the house-top, and had been fearful that her conduct would be misconstrued.
"You speak truly," said Burr; "there might be cases in which suspicious persons would entertain such a notion: but no one who knew Miss Moncrieffe would dare to do so, and certainly never to express the unworthy thought;" and Burr laid his hand upon his sword in a threatening manner.
Miss Moncrieffe was evidently pleased with Burr's mode of treating the subject, and, with downcast eye, she passed on to the inner room.
It might have been supposed by some, if they had witnessed this interview, that Burr would have felt pretty sure of winning the heart of Miss Moncrieffe, and receiving favors in consequence of it. But our hero was not so sanguine. The frankness of Miss Moncrieffe under the circumstance, the self-sacrifice which she had made in confessing her supposed fault, argued, in the mind of Burr, against such flattering hopes; for here seemed to be displayed a coolness of judgment, and heroic perseverance of duty, which he had not looked for in one so young, and so enthusiastic in her admiration of liberty, and of those who were fighting to obtain it.
The deportment of the English beauty, immediately subsequent to that time, strengthened Burr in his opinion of her character and conduct.
Miss Moncrieffe took her former place at the table, but she accepted
