those they felt to be their country’s foes, they knew it to be best to be silent and accept the authority they had not the strength to defy. So the fishing-boats swung at anchor in the harbor, and the men lingered about the landing, or fished for plaice fish and sole from their dories near shore.

“We’ll be poor indeed when frost comes,” complained Mrs. Stoddard; “my molasses keg is near empty now, and the meal barrel not half full. If those Britishers do not soon leave the harbor so that the men can get back to the fishing, this place will know hunger, for our larder is no poorer than our neighbors’.”

“Yes,” agreed Captain Enos, “the whole coast is feeling the king’s displeasure because we will not pay him taxes to fill his pockets, and make slaves of us. I wish we had some news of our Boston friends. The Freemans are well to do, but with Boston beset on all sides with British soldiers they may be hard pressed.”

“’Twill come to worse yet, be sure,” predicted Mrs. Stoddard gloomily.

It was but a few days after this when with joyful songs the British sailors made ready to sail, and on a bright July morning the vessels, taking advantage of a fair wind, bent their sails and skimmed away up the coast.

“They are bound for Boston,” declared Captain Enos, “and ’Tis soon enough they’ll be back again. The Boston folk will not let them come to anchor, I’ll be bound.”

Hardly had the ships got under headway before the fishermen were rowing out to their sailboats, and soon the little fleet was under sail bound off Race Point toward the fishing grounds.

“Now, Anne, you had best go after Brownie and bring her back to her old pasture. I like not the long tramp morning and night to milk the creature,” said Mrs. Stoddard, and she watched Anne, with the wooden doll clasped in her arm, go obediently off on her errand.

A little smile crept over her face as she stood in the doorway. “Captain Enos would like well that Anne be called Anne Stoddard,” she said aloud; “he begins to recall good traits in her father, and to think no other child in the settlement has the spirit that our girl has. And I am well pleased that it is so,” she concluded with a little sigh, “for there will be poor days ahead for us to bear, and had the captain not changed his mind about Anne I should indeed have had hard work to manage,” and she turned back to her simple household tasks.

Anne went slowly up the sandy slope, stopping here and there to see if the beach plums showed any signs of ripening, and turning now and then to see if she could pick out Captain Enos’s sail among the boats going swiftly out toward the open sea.

As she came in sight of the little grove of maples her quick eyes saw a man moving among them. Brownie was quietly feeding, evidently undisturbed. Anne stopped, holding Martha very tightly, her eyes fixed upon the moving figure. She was not afraid, but she wondered who it was, for she thought that every man in the settlement had gone to the fishing grounds. As she looked, something familiar in the man’s movements sent her running toward the grove.

“It is my father. I know it is my father,” she whispered to herself. As she came down the slope the man evidently saw her, for he came out from the wood a little as if waiting for her.

“Anne, Anne!” he exclaimed, as she came near, and in a moment his arm was around her and he was clasping her close.

“Come back in the wood, dear child,” he said. “And you have not forgotten your father?”

Anne smiled up at him happily. “I could never do that,” she responded. “See, here is my doll. Her name is Martha Stoddard Nelson.”

“An excellent name,” declared the man smilingly. “How neat and rosy you look, Anne! You look as if you had fared well. Be they kind to you?”

“Oh, yes, father. They say now that I am their little girl. But I am not,” and Anne shook her head smilingly. “I am my own father’s little girl; though I like them well,” she added.

The two were seated on a grassy hummock where no eye could see them; but from time to time John Nelson looked about furtively as if expecting some one to appear.

“You are not a ‘traitor’ or a ‘spy,’ are you, father?” questioned the child. “When the Cary children did say so I chased them from the spring, and Captain Enos said I did well. But I did think you lost at sea, father!”

The man shook his head. “Try and remember what I tell you, child, that you may know your father for an honest man. The day I left harbor on my fishing trip I was run down by one of those British vessels. The sloop sank, and they threw me a rope and pulled me on board. It was rare sport for their sailors to see me struggle for my very life.” The man stopped and his face grew very grave and stern. “Then they said they were coming into Cape Cod Harbor, and that I should be their pilot. They said they would make a good bonfire of the shanties of the settlement. And then, child, I misled them. I laughed and said, ‘’Tis a settlement of good Royalists if ever there was one.’ They would scarce believe me. But they came into harbor, and when the men proved civil and refused them nothing, then they credited what I said. But they told me they were bound for Dorchester Harbor, and there they would make a good English soldier of me. I said nothing, but this morning, in the confusion of making sail, I slipped overboard and swam ashore, bound that I would have a look at my girl and know her safe and well.”

“And now, father, shall we go back and live in the little house by the shore? Mistress Stoddard has kept our things safely, and she has taught me many useful things,” said Anne proudly.

“No, child. For me to stay in this settlement would bring trouble upon it. Those ships will return here, and if I were found among the men here, then, indeed, would their anger be great. They must think me drowned, else they would indeed make a bonfire of every house along the shore.”

“But what will you do, father? You must stay with me now.”

“No, dear child. I must make my way up the cape to the settlements and join the Americans. My eyes are opened: ’Tis right that they should protect their homes. I will have some information for them, and I no longer have any place here. The Stoddards are good to you, Anne? They task thee not beyond thy strength? and they speak pleasantly to thee?”

“They are ever kind, father; they do smile on me, and Captain Enos does always give me the best piece of fish at table; and he told the Cary children that I was his little girl, and that I was not to be plagued. But he is not my own father,” answered Anne, “and if you must go up the cape I will go with you. The nights are warm and pleasant, and I shall like well to sleep out-of-doors with the stars shining down on us. And if you go with the Americans I will go too. They will not mind one little girl!”

Her father smoothed the dark hair tenderly and smiled at the eager, upturned face.

“You love me, Anne, and I’ll not forget that I have a dear, brave daughter waiting for me. I’ll be the braver and the better man remembering. But you cannot go with me. I shall be scant fed and footsore for many a long day, and I will not let you bear any hardship I can keep from you. It will be a joy to me to know you safe with Mistress Stoddard; and if I live they shall be repaid for all they do for you. They are indeed kind to you?” he again questioned anxiously.

“They are indeed,” responded Anne, seriously.

“Now I must begin my