wrath he began pulling at her shawl as I went, shouting that he would have
her, while to make matters worse the babe herself set up a loud wail. Thus
you may imagine I was in a fine state of confusion and temper when I stood
finally at the side of the hearth and felt Mr. Stewart's eyes upon me. But
I had the girl.

"What is the tumult?" he demanded, in a vexed tone. "What are you doing,
Douw, and what child is this?"

"It is my child, sir!" young Philip spoke up, panting from his exertions,
and red with color.

The two men broke out in loud laughter at this, so long sustained that
Philip himself joined it, and grinned reluctantly. I was too angry to even
feel relieved that the altercation was to have no serious consequences for
me--much less to laugh myself. I opened the shawl, that the little one
might feel the heat, and said nothing.

"Well, the lad is right, in a way," finally chuckled the Major. "It's as
much his child as it is anybody's this side of heaven."

The phrase checked his mirth, and he went on more seriously:

"She is the child of a young couple who had come to the Palatine Village
only a few weeks before. The man was a cooper or wheelwright, one or the
other, and his name was Peet or Peek, or some such Dutch name. When
Belletre fell upon the town at night, the man was killed in the first
attack. The woman with her child ran with the others to the ford. There in
the darkness and panic she was crushed under and drowned; but strange
enough--who can tell how these matters are ordered?--the infant was in