"
It was, I fancy, because Tom had from childhood adored her so much,
that he now took her conduct so ill, and showed upon occasion a
bitterness that he never manifested over any other subject.
"What do you mean, you saucy boy?" cried she, turning red, and looking
mighty handsome. "You might take a lesson or two in manners from some
of the scarlet coats!"
"Egad, they wouldn't find time to give me lessons, being so busy with
you! But which of your teachers do you recommend--Captain Andre, Lord
Rawdon, Colonel Campbell, or the two Germans whose names I can't
pronounce? By George, you won't be happy till you have Sir Henry
Clinton and General Knyphausen disputing for the front place at your
feet!"
[Illustration: "SHE WAS INDEED THE TOAST OF THE ARMY."]
She softened from anger to a little laugh of conscious triumph, tapped
him with her fan, and sped up the stairs. Her prediction had come
true. She was indeed the toast of the army. Her mother apparently saw
no scandal in this, being blinded by her own partiality to the royal
side. Her father knew it not, for he rarely attended the British
festivities, from which he could not in reason debar his wife and
daughters. Fanny was too innocent to see harm in what her sister did.
But Tom and I, though we never spoke of it to each other, were made
sensitive, by our friendship for Philip, to the impropriety of the
situation--that the wife of an absent American officer should reign as
a beauty among his military enemies.
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