Chapter 16 - Page 2

soldiery, and great good nature. Added to
these, Betty had the merit of being the inventor of that beverage which
is so well known, at the present hour, to all the patriots who make a
winter's march between the commercial and political capitals of this
great state, and which is distinguished by the name of "cocktail."
Elizabeth Flanagan was peculiarly well qualified, by education and
circumstances, to perfect this improvement in liquors, having been
literally brought up on its principal ingredient, and having acquired
from her Virginian customers the use of mint, from its flavor in a julep
to its height of renown in the article in question. Such, then, was the
mistress of the mansion, who, reckless of the cold northern blasts,
showed her blooming face from the door of the building to welcome the
arrival of her favorite, Captain Lawton, and his companion, her master
in matters of surgery.

"Ah! by my hopes of promotion, my gentle Elizabeth, but you are
welcome!" cried the trooper, as he threw himself from his saddle. "This
villainous fresh-water gas from the Canadas has been whistling among my
bones till they ache with the cold, but the sight of your fiery
countenance is as cheery as a Christmas fire."

"Now sure, Captain Jack, ye's always full of your complimentaries,"
replied the sutler, taking the bridle of her customer. "But hurry in for
the life of you, darling; the fences hereabouts are not so strong as in
the Highlands, and there's that within will warm both sowl and body."

"So you have been laying the rails under contribution, I see. Well, that
may do for the body," said the captain coolly; "but I have had a pull at
a bottle of cut glass with a silver stand, and I doubt my relish for
your whisky for a month to come."

"If it's silver or goold that ye're thinking of, it's but little I have,
though I've a trifling bit of the continental," said Betty, with a look
of humor; "but there's that within that's fit to be put in vissils of
di'monds."

"What can she mean, Archibald?" asked Lawton. "The animal looks as if it
meant more than it says!"

"'Tis probably a wandering of the reasoning powers, created by the
frequency of intoxicating drafts," observed the surgeon, as he
deliberately threw his left leg over the pommel of the saddle, and slid
down on the right side of his horse.

"Faith, my dear jewel of a doctor, but it was this side I was expicting
you; the whole corps come down on this side but yeerself," said Betty,
winking at the trooper; "but I've been feeding the wounded, in yeer
absence, with the fat of the land."

"Barbarous