her sufferings?«
    »Let them learn, for their own sakes,« replied Edith, »to venerate the laws,
and to spare innocent blood. Let them return to their allegiance, and I can
forgive them all that I have suffered, were it ten times more.«
    »You think it impossible, then,« rejoined the cavalier, »for any one to
serve in our ranks, having the weal of his country sincerely at heart, and
conceiving himself in the discharge of a patriotic duty?«
    »It might be imprudent, while so absolutely in your power,« replied Miss
Bellenden, »to answer that question.«
    »Not in the present instance, I plight you the word of a soldier,« replied
the horseman.
    »I have been taught candour from my birth,« said Edith; »and, if I am to
speak at all, I must utter my real sentiments. God only can judge the heart -
men must estimate intentions by actions. Treason - murder by the sword and by
gibbet - the oppression of a private family such as ours, who were only in arms
for the defence of the established government, and of our own property - are
actions which must needs sully all that have accession to them, by whatever
specious terms they may be gilded over.«
    »The guilt of civil war,« rejoined the horseman - »the miseries which it
brings in its train, lie at the door of those who provoked it by illegal
oppression, rather than of such as are driven to arms in order to assert their
natural rights as freemen.«
    »That is assuming the question,« replied Edith, »which ought to be proved.
Each party contends that they are right in point of principle, and therefore the
guilt must lie with them who first drew the sword; as, in an affray, law holds
those to be the criminals who are the first to have recourse to violence.«
    »Alas!« said the horseman, »were our vindication to rest there, how easy
would it be to show that we have suffered with a patience which almost seemed
beyond the power of humanity, ere we were driven by oppression into open
resistance! - But I perceive,« he continued, sighing deeply, »that it is vain to
plead before Miss Bellenden a cause which she has already prejudged, perhaps as
much from her dislike of the persons as of the principles of those engaged in
it.«
    »Pardon me,« answered Edith. »I have stated with freedom my opinion of the
principles of the insurgents;