acute observer might have read aright the look in her beautiful eyes, however, the trembling of her little white hand as it lay upon Lieutenant Freeman's arm.
"Aye, Mistress Nancy. They were arrested only on suspicion for loitering. There is no other charge against them. But you understand, with the city under martial law we cannot be too careful!"
"But you could throw them into that horrible place, the 'Long Room,' among pickpockets and thieves, two little innocent maids, on such a charge as that?"
For a dangerous moment all affectation of gayety forsook her voice and honest indignation was apparent in it. The captain scowled at the rebuke and the poor little prisoners' fate hung fire as he took an involuntary step forward to snatch the passports out of her hand. Then ordinary politeness made him pause and the lady snapped her fingers mischievously in his face, changing the scene magically back into the laughing farce she intended it to be. She left the captain smiling amorously after her.
"Oh, you naughty men!" she cried, as she tripped away, followed by Mehitable and Charity, with Lieutenant Freeman bringing up the rear like a bodyguard.
But outside, on the edge of the "Fields," when they had passed beyond the range of the Debtors' Prison, she became a tender, compassionate woman, all her coquetry and flippancy vanishing before her genuine pity.
"Ah, Anthony!" she cried, stooping to place her arms around poor, sick little Charity, "'Tis so pitiful, this war, when it comes to babies like this!"
