between great hunks of bread. "But doan yo eat it f'r awhile yit! Yo is likely t'die an ye do!"
Charity thanked her gratefully. She had half a mind to ask permission to tarry in that big, warm kitchen; but a strange restlessness drove her on. Besides her anxiety for Young Cy, she was afraid that the mansion might be headquarters for the British, from its size and magnificence.
The kind-hearted stableman escorted her past the sentry, unchallenged. When they separated. Charity tried to tell him of her gratitude; but he cut her short.
"I once had a daughter like you," he told her abruptly and swung upon his heel. As he did so, Charity was both amazed and made sorry to hear him utter a short, hoarse groan. But he did not wait for sympathy, and after a moment Charity hugged her bundle of sandwiches to her and trudged away, wondering if the hostler's daughter were dead or lost, as she was now lost.
"These be such strange, queer times," she murmured to herself. She drifted into a reverie, wondering mournfully if she were ever to see her father and mother and Mehitable again. But Charity was a brave little soul and after a while she blinked the tears from her eyes and looked around her.
If John had been there he could have told her at once that she was in Broadway, that long thoroughfare which stretched out and out until eventually it led to distant places, up the Hudson River through Yonkers and Tarrytown and on until it became the postroad
