"
"Oh! excessively so," said Sarah hastily. "I do wish, with my father,
that this cruel war was at an end, that we might return to our friends
once more."
"And you, Miss Frances, do you long as ardently for peace as your
sister?"
"On many accounts I certainly do," returned the other, venturing to
steal a timid glance at her interrogator; and, meeting the same
benevolent expression of feeling as before, she continued, as her own
face lighted into one of its animated and bright smiles of intelligence,
"but not at the expense of the rights of my countrymen."
"Rights!" repeated her sister, impatiently; "whose rights can be
stronger than those of a sovereign: and what duty is clearer, than to
obey those who have a natural right to command?"
"None, certainly," said Frances, laughing with great pleasantry; and,
taking the hand of her sister affectionately within both of her own, she
added, with a smile directed towards Harper,--
"I gave you to understand that my sister and myself differed in our
political opinions; but we have an impartial umpire in my father, who
loves his own countrymen, and he loves the British,--so he takes sides
with neither."
"Yes," said Mr. Wharton, in a little alarm, eying first one guest, and
then the other; "I have near friends in both armies, and I dread a
victory by either, as a source of certain private misfortune.
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