"And it really was necessary to fight--I suppose it could not have been in
reason avoided?"

"They would have it so. They clung to the faith that they were by right
the masters here, and we the slaves, and so infatuated were they that they
brought in English troops and force to back them up. There was no
alternative but to fight. Would you have had me on the other side--on the
English side, Daisy?"

"Oh, no, Douw," she answered, in a clear voice. "If war there must be,
why, of course, the side of my people is my side."

I was not surprised at this, but I said, "You speak of your people,
Daisy--but surely mere birth does not count for more than one's whole
training afterward, and you have been bred among another class altogether.
Why, I should think nine out of every ten of your friends here in the
Mohawk district must be Tories."

"Not so great a proportion as that," she went on, with a faint smile upon
her lips, but deep gravity in her eyes. "You do not know the value of
these 'friends,' as you call them, as closely as I do. Never have they
forgotten on their side, even if I did on mine, that my parents were
Palatine peasants. And you speak of my being bred among them! In what way
more than you were? Was I not brought up side by side with you? Was there
any difference in our rearing, in our daily life until--until you left us?
Why should I not be a patriot, sir, as well as you?"

She ended with a little laugh, but the voice quivered beneath it. We both
were thinking, I felt, of the dear old days gone by, and of the melancholy
fate which clouded over and darkened those days, and drove us apart.