"
"Speak, I beg, without dread of my displeasure," said Frances, returning
the good-humored smile of the trooper, with the archness natural to her
own sweet face.
"The odors of your kitchen, then," cried Lawton bluntly, "forbid my
quitting the domains, until I qualify myself to speak with more
certainty concerning the fatness of the land."
"Oh! Aunt Jeanette is exerting herself to do credit to my father's
hospitality," said the laughing girl, "and I am a truant from her
labors, as I shall be a stranger to her favor, unless I proffer my
assistance."
Frances withdrew to seek her aunt, musing deeply on the character and
extreme sensibility of the new acquaintance chance had brought to
the cottage.
The wounded officer followed her with his eyes, as she moved, with
infantile grace, through the door of his apartment, and as she vanished
from his view, he observed,--
"Such an aunt and niece are seldom to be met with, Jack; this seems a
fairy, but the aunt is angelic."
"You are doing well, I see; your enthusiasm for the sex holds its own."
"I should be ungrateful as well as insensible, did I not bear testimony
to the loveliness of Miss Peyton."
"A good motherly lady, but as to love, that is a matter of taste. A few
years younger, with deference to her prudence and experience, would
accord better with my fancy.
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