men into the field. We have not easily found our foes in a country in which, indeed, it is our chief desire to find friends only."
"It follows from this, Major Proctor, that there is only so much more safety for his majesty's more loyal subjects."
"You are incorrigible, Miss Walton."
"No, sir; only too indulgent—too like my countrymen—dreading the combat which I yet see is a necessity."
"If so, why has there been so little opposition?"
"Perhaps, sir, you will not always ask the question."
"You still have hopes, then, of the rebel cause."
"My country's cause, Major Proctor, if you please. I still have hopes; and I trust that his majesty's arms may not long have to regret the continuance of a warfare so little stimulating to their enterprise, and so little calculated to yield them honour."
The British colonel bowed at the equivocal sentiment, and after a pause of a few moments the lady proceeded—
"And yet, Major Proctor, not to speak too freely of matters of which my sex can know so little, I must say, knowing as I do the spirit of some among my countrymen—I must say, it has greatly surprised me that your conquests should have been usually so easy."
"That need not surprise you, Miss Walton; you remember that ours are British soldiers"—and with a smile and bow, the British major made his self-complacent, but only half serious answer.
"By which I am to understand, on the authority of one of the parties, its own invincibility. It is with your corps, I believe, that the sentiment runs—though they do not—'we never retreat, we die.' Unquestionable authority, surely; and it may be that such is the case. Few persons think more highly of British valour than the Carolinians. Father, you, I know, think extravagantly of it; and cousin Robert, too: I have heard you both speak in terms which fully sustain you, Major Proctor, in what might be called the self-complaisance which just now assigned the cause of your success."
Colouring somewhat, and with a grave tone of voice that was not his wont, Proctor replied—
"There is truth in what I have told you, Miss Walton; the British soldier fights with a perfect faith in his invincibility, and this
