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 I can't see why Hitty should have to go this terrible weather," he grumbled, seating himself upon a chair to kick off his boots. Thoughtful Charity appeared at his elbow with the, then turned to her mother.

"Why not let me make the butter, then Hitty and Father could start at once?" she implored.

"Nay!" Mehitable bustled about. "Ye are not strong enough! But I will let you salt it, Cherry."

An hour or so later, two muffled figures set forth upon horseback from the Condit gate. Charity, watching them wistfully through the window, turned at last silently back to the fireplace. Her mother watched her with tender eyes.

"Why," said Charity half to herself, seating herself in the inglenook and taking up the stocking she was knitting for Young Cy, "why must I ever be the one to wait at home! It must be so fine to be strong and able to go forth as Hitty does!"

"Yet, mayhap it is safer to wait at home," answered her mother quietly, shoving the pans of rising bread nearer the fire. "That's all right, dear—don't move!" she added. "I want ye to remain near the warmth of the fire, too, this bitter day. Suppose the British"—she went back to her first thought—"suppose they were to raid Newark this night, Cherry! Home would then seem a pretty good place to be in!"

"This bitter night, Mother!" answered Charity


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 scornfully, for once not to be cheered. "Nay, the British like their comfort too well to venture forth this night!" And she fell into a gloomy reverie, wishing she might have formed a third of the little Newark-bound group, for the days, after their exciting Morris Town visit, seemed doubly monotonous.

Mehitable, doubtless because she was glad to get away from their Newark Mountain farm, was chatteringly happy, jogging along beside her father.

"And the American raid over to Staten Island was a failure, ye say, Hitty?" Squire Condit returned to the topic which had excited his interest ever since his daughter, primed with the latest war news, had returned from the army encampment.

"Aye, for all Quartermaster Lewis got the three hundred sleds together for the army, sir! They marched to Elizabethport and went across on the ice to Staten Island. They do say about three thousand men went, under Lord Stirling." Mehitable was as loquacious, and her father listened as eagerly, as though it were the first time, instead of nearer the tenth, that she had told of the incident.

"And the British had got word o' our army's coming?" prompted Squire Condit.

"Aye, Father." Mehitable sighed. "The expedition, forsooth, was a rank failure, for our men

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 not only returned without the supplies they had hoped to capture; but about five hundred o' the soliders had their feet frozen. They came back to Kemble Hill much the worse for the raid."

"Too bad, too bad!" The Squire fell to ruminating sadly. "Though, of course, His Excellency could not have forseen the result!" he added loyally.

Passing the Ranfield Tavern, Mehitable and her father were hailed by Master Ranfield, who was busy at the well. As they reined their horses in surprise, he swung the well sweep to rest and came toward them.

"Good-morrow, Squire! Morrow, mistress!" He touched his forelock. "Did ye miss naught after leaving here that even last month?" he asked the young girl with twinkling eyes.

Mehitable knitted her brows. "Why, aye, Master Ranfield!" she exclaimed, then. Twas a little rush-woven basket, was it not! I ha' ne'er thought o' it since." She turned in laughing explanation to her father, as Master Ranfield smilingly went into the inn to fetch her property. "Mistress Wright did give it me wi' a piece o' Scotch cake and its recipe for my mother that day, and I must have left it here later i' my hurry to get away. The cake will be dry indeed; but the recipe is worth saving, and the basket must be returned to Mistress Wright." Then, as Master Ranfield,


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 returning, handed the basket to her, she thanked him.

"I found it on the table full o' my wife's belongings—thread and wax and letters," he observed. "She being out, I dumped everything out, and now I shall pray someone will come e'er my mistress discovers what I ha' done"—Master Ranfield sighed half-jokingly, half in earnest—"for she doth not scold an there be strangers present!"

"Poor Master Ranfield, I envy him not his lot!" remarked Mehitable, a moment later, urging old Dulcie into a trot as her father's horse started away.

"The woman Ranfield doth indeed possess a shrew's tongue!" responded the Squire, thinking affectionately of his own sweet-natured wife.

They were silent for awhile, then Mehitable, tying the little basket to her saddle, idly plucked out of it a torn piece of paper. For a second, she thought it was the cake recipe which Mistress Wright had written; but, examining it, she saw the words "will see ye soon. Write out such information as can obtain price and"

Mehitable glanced up excitedly, then she checked the words upon her lips. With a glance at her father, who had noticed naught, she tucked the piece of paper away in her reticule, resolving to find some excuse for stopping at the Ranfield Tavern on her return and there investigate for herself.


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 If Mistress Ranfield were a paid spy in British service, Mehitable meant to know it!

Everywhere, now, nearing the Town by the River, though the devastation was covered by the kindly snow, they saw the blackened barns and half-ruined houses left by enemy raids. Mehitable, eyeing them, spoke wrathfully.

"Ah, Father—an we could only go to England and spoil their homes thus!"

"Nay, Hitty!" The Squire shook his head sadly. "Wish not for more mischief to be caused in the world!"

"Think you the British will try to avenge General Washington's attack on Staten Island?" asked the girl. "Newark must suffer an they do!"

"It will not be soon, I feel sure," said her father, "for it is too cold to suit the enemy! The British, as well as the fat Hessians, like their comfort well. And now, Hitty"—his tone became business-like as they rode into the village of Newark—"I will leave ye at Mistress Hedden's. Tell the lady, however, Hitty, that I will not put her to the trouble o' bedding me. I must see some men this evening and will stay at the Eagle Tavern."

"Oh, Father!" Mehitable was quick to protest; but afterward how glad she was that her father had not yielded.

As they drew rein before the Hedden residence on Broad Street—the main thoroughfare running


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 north and south on which were many handsome residences, Squire Condit reached over and caught the bridle of his daughter's horse, preparatory to leading him away to the tavern stable.

"Farewell, Hitty!" he said, nodding. "Giddap, General!"

"Wait!" Mehitable, who had leaped to the ground, sprang after him as he started away. She slipped upon the icy road, was up and ran after her father wildly as he jogged unheedingly away, to the great amusement of various interested faces in neighboring windows. "Father, wait ye!"

Squire Condit, turning in his saddle and perceiving the figure of his daughter running after him, brought his horse to an abrupt halt.

"How now, Hitty?" he asked, much amused, also.

"My bag—the saddlebag!" gasped Mehitable. "My 'housewife' be in it! How could I sew upon the uniforms an ye take my sewing things to the Eagle Tavern, Father!" She looked up at him reproachfully as she unslung the bag. "Now ye may go!" She gave him laughing permission at last and held up the bag triumphantly.

Mistress Hedden greeted her smilingly, having seen the incident from her window. "I thought it must be you, Hitty! Town girls do not run so well!" Then, as Mehitable blushed, she added laughingly: "That was a compliment, my child."


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 She led the way past her parlor into the warm kitchen at the end of the hall. "Ye are just in time, for Mistress McWhorter, our pastor's wife, and my daughter are but now cutting out the uniforms!"

Mehitable followed her rather shyly; but the kindly manners of both Mistress Hedden and her daughter soon put her at ease, and in a little while her fingers were flying as swiftly as any.

As they sewed, the ladies laughed and chatted. Mistress McWhorter was holding forth mischievously when Mehitable seated herself and took up a blue coat.

"I suppose," said the minister's wife, with a teasing glance at Mistress Hedden's daughter, who was betrothed to the lady's half brother, Captain Cumming, "I suppose ye be sorry, my dear, the uniform ye ha' there be not for John Cumming—'twould make it so much more interesting, forsooth—eh?"

"Fie, mistress, no fair to tease!" cried the young girl, blushing and tossing her head. "Tell us, Hitty"—she tried to divert the others' attention from her own crimson cheeks—"tell us whom ye would be cutting out your uniform for an ye could choose!"

Mehitable thought for a moment, then looked up blandly. "John!" she answered demurely.

"No fair!" Laughing, the other girl shook her head. "Brothers are not to be included. Besides,


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 that would be denying Mistress Nancy Livingston her privilege! She would then ha' no uniform to work on for her choosing!"

"She would—would have her cousin, Captain Anthony Freeman," murmured Mehitable. Suddenly, to her enormous confusion, she felt her cheeks reddening. The other girl, with a little cry, pounced upon her.

"How now, Hitty Condit, have I stumbled upon a pretty secret?"

"Indeed not! I have not the least interest in Captain Freeman! Of all the shallow, frittering creatures! Why, he hath reputation for being a wild young rake! Nay, not Captain Freeman, I prithee! Not him!" Mehitable spoke rashly and was rather taken aback when Mistress McWhorter, who had been listening in silence, now interrupted in her soft voice.

"Is't true, Hitty! Why, I thought him a very nice young man—not that kind at all!"

The blue uniform dropped into Mehitable's lap. "Ye—ye know him?" she stammered. How she wished, now, she had not spoken so hastily! Indeed, what proof, save the little fairy story of Charity's telling, had she that Anthony Freeman was at all rakish. "My dreadful tongue! Will I ne'er learn to control it!" she thought uncomfortably.

"Aye. He supped at our house yesterday


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 even," answered Mistress McWhorter quietly. "My husband is fond o' him, having known his parents before they died, as well as Mistress Nancy's parents, for years."

"But what—what was he doing in Newark?" exclaimed Mehitable. "I thought he was in Morris Town!"

"So he was," agreed Mistress McWhorter amiably. "He had to return some equipment borrowed from the Masons here for a festival in Morris Town."

"Did he return at once?" asked Mehitable eagerly. "I—I mean—is he"

"But, Hitty," interrupted the other girl soberly, though her eyes betrayed her mirth, "I thought ye said ye were not in the least interested in the young man! Methinks your words belie ye!"

Mehitable's round chin lifted. "Nay, I am not interested!" she insisted. Tis only that—that—he be John's friend and—and—Nancy's cousin, and—and—well, he is John's friend, so it be perfectly natural I be—wishing to—to—know"

"Aye, very natural!" agreed the other, bursting into laughter. "Don't try to explain, Hitty! Ye but make matters more complicated. And since ye are not interested in the young man, we will drop the subject and talk about John Cumming!" And to Mehitable's immense relief, then, the conversation was switched to another topic.


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 Half an hour later, however, Mistress McWhorter unexpectedly reintroduced Captain Freeman's name.

"In sooth, I do not know what to do wi' him," she was saying in a perplexed voice to Mistress Hedden. "He is to stay at the barracks another night e'er he returns to Morris Town, and unwittingly, not remembering the doctor and I were to dine out, I asked him to come to-night to supper. Of course, Mandy can serve him; but I fear it will be lonely for him to eat by himself."

"Whom are ye troubled about?" Mistress Hedden's daughter looked up from her giggling conversation with Mehitable. "Captain Freeman? Ah, Mother," she turned to Mistress Hedden, "do ask him over here! I pine to meet"—she shot a naughty look at Mehitable—"the terrible rake!"

"An you girls will not treat him politely, not a step shall he come!" admonished her mother. "Aye, send him here, for I know ye approve o' him"—she turned to the minister's wife cordially. "Hitty is doubtless mistaken!"

"Where are the barracks?" asked Mehitable, hoping that she was mistaken.

"In the new Academy," answered Mistress McWhorter.

"And very nice quarters the Academy makes!" said Mistress Hedden's daughter. She rose and, placing the coat she had been stitching upon a pile


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 of uniforms, stretched herself with a little yawn. "There, that one be done!"

"Well, here be plenty more!" laughed her mother. "So stand not there idling!"

The girl took the unfinished garment her mother held out to her and returned to her seat beside Mehitable.

"Since the enemy ha' been so bold, we have had soldiers from the Continental Army in Newark here, doing picket duty on the west bank o' the Passaic River," she remarked.

"Aye?" responded Mehitable. But her tone was absent. Over and over would come that picture of certain reproachful dark eyes, thrusting out the real scene of firelit dining room and busy seamstresses. She sighed.

"Why do ye do thus, Hitty?" Drawing near, Mistress Hedden's young son, who had been watching Mehitable, imitated her by giving vent to a loud, long sigh. "Ye do make such funny faces! First ye smile and then ye frown!"

Mehitable hastily offered him a comfit from her pocket, and in the confusion of Mistress McWhorter's leave-taking, the child's words, to her relief, were unnoticed.

That evening, Mehitable hesitated on the stairs before descending to enter the Hedden parlor. Her thoughts were at war. She was in a quandary. Being sweet-natured as most quick-tempered folk,


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 her better impulse was to greet Captain Freeman like the old friend he was, frankly showing him she was sorry for her rudeness to him that first meeting at Mistress Lindsley's. She owed him, besides, a debt of gratitude she had not yet allowed him to guess she was aware of. Then Charity's fairy tale, like an ugly snake thrusting its head up in warning, caused her heart to sink.

"Oh, I wish Cherry had minded her own affairs and told me naught o' her silly tale!" thought Mehitable crossly. "Though she did it for mine own good. Yet mayhap Nancy was mistaken—Mistress McWhorter thought so—and the good mistress be right—he doesn't look that kind—he"

She faltered miserably again at the half-closed door when, with leaden feet, she had reached it. Then her courage returned, and raising her chin in derision at her own cowardice, she pushed open the door, meaning to walk in and offer her hand in friendly greeting to Captain Freeman.

But, alas for all of Mehitable's good resolves! Captain Freeman and his young hostess, Mistress Hedden's daughter, were laughing and whispering in the corner and did not even glance up at her entrance.

Now, it is one thing to come, full of a noble desire to make atonement, to a person whom one has wronged; but quite another to find that person as


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 happy as though the apology had been offered. In the close proximity of dark hair to yellow curls, of intimate giggles and the little hand which Mistress Hedden's daughter had placed upon a buff and blue sleeve as she gazed merrily up into her guest's black eyes, all of poor Mehitable's doubt and suspicions rushed back upon her.

"The fairy tale is true!" she thought passionately, to herself.

So her curtsey was stiff, indeed, when at last the young soldier did glance up and spring to his feet. Captain Freeman's bow—for he had learned his lesson, poor fellow!—was then as formal as her curtsey was stiff and the next moment both young people turned away, each hurt to the quick by the other's behavior. Mehitable swept over to seat herself beside Master Hedden, a mild-faced, kind-mannered man who, as the evening progressed and his youthful guest did not stir from his side but apparently hung engrossed upon his words, became quite flattered by her interest, and later told his wife that "Hitty Condit was a most amiable and bright maid!" How could the deluded man know that Mehitable's answers were only by some happy chance coherent, and that every bit of her attention was really centered upon the young couple across the room.

Mehitable was not comforted, either, by Mistress Hedden's daughter observing in her ear, as


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 they went out to the supper table, "Ye be right, Hitty! The young man is a fascinating flirt!"

So passed that evening, and at last Captain Freeman bade them farewell. After his departure, Mistress Hedden was upon her way to bed when she noticed that her husband was still in low-voiced conversation outside the door. When he came in, shivering and rubbing his icy hands together, Mehitable, halfway up the stairs, heard his wife reproach him.

"Why, Father, art foolish to stand outside wi' Captain Freeman this cold night! What had he to say?"

Master Hedden laughed at his wife's curiosity as he closed and bolted the front door. "Captain Freeman tells me there be much agitation against me," he told her. Then, at her quick look of anxiety, he burst out, "But I care not! I be i' the right to enforce the laws o' the State! Let those Tories who are angry wi' me, when I warn them, take the oath o' allegiance an they do not want their property confiscated!"

Tis too bad ye ha' created so many enemies, however, Joseph, e'en though ye do be pursuing your official duties!" Mistress Hedden shook her head as she followed her husband upstairs. "Neighbors turning thus against neighbors i' this most dreadful war!"


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 It was late when the two girls, who slept together, dozed off—for Mistress Hedden's daughter had had to explain that she really cared only for "her John," and had been merely laughing and passing the time with Captain Freeman, and Mehitable, too proud to do other than accept the other's explanation, had related sundry interesting, though very innocent, tales of Morris Town—it was late, I say, when the summoning blows came upon the Heddens' front door, so that Mehitable thought at first it was morning and that they were being summoned to breakfast.

Someone moved in the moonlit room, grasped her arm. "Best get up, Hitty!" whispered Mistress Hedden's daughter hoarsely. "Mother hath gone down to answer the door, yet had we better dress!"

Springing out of bed to draw on her clothes with fumbling, desperate fingers, Mehitable asked, "Think ye it be a British raid?"

"Aye," choked the other. "Oh, Hitty, ever are Mother and I fearful they come for Father—the feeling be so bitter against him among the Tories because he has had to prosecute those who will not take the oath o' allegiance!"

"Nay," said Mehitable soothingly, thrusting her feet into her slippers. "Do not fear—it may be only a neighbor come in case o' sickness for your


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 mother's help!" She reached up to fasten her dress as she spoke.

But the next instant her arms dropped rigidly to her sides. There came the sound of men's feet tramping upon the stairs.


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HERE was a man's cry from the next room. Back came the tramping feet, with the added sound of a heavy body being dragged along the floor. Opening the door, Mehitable peered out, and in the moonlight recognized the half-clad figure of her host being hustled and harried down the stairs. With a thrill of horror, she hurried after the red-coats and their victim.

Then there was enacted in that little hallway a scene of wildest confusion. The Heddens' youngest child was crying forlornly in a corner. Their daughter knelt beside them as the father and mother clasped each other in farewell. The next moment, Mistress Hedden was forced away from her husband.

"Back, fool—your husband be under arrest!" the British officer in charge told her roughly.

"Joseph!" Breaking away from the two soldiers who held her, poor Mistress Hedden ran toward her husband. Mehitable, staring in awful terror, saw her reel back from the point of the


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 bayonet that one of the guard brutally lowered at that instant. She sprang to catch her; but Mistress Hedden jerked away from the pitying arms and desperately pursued the invaders down the front steps out into the bitter cold.

"Let him dress!" she screamed. "At least, in the name o' humanity, let him dress an ye must take him! See"—her sobbing voice came back to the two horror-stricken young girls—"he has no shoes on! His feet will be frozen this bitter night! Ah—Joseph!"

Again Mehitable sprang to the poor wife's rescue, for again the brute of a soldier lowered his bayonet point. For the second time Mistress Hedden reeled back, this time with wounded cheek. She sank through Mehitable's arms on to the snow, sobbing hysterically.

Mehitable turned to the other girl, who seemed turned to stone. "Take your mother into the house!" she bade her roughly, shaking her. "I will go and see what they intend to do wi' your father!"

A lurid glare now broke across the night. "The red-coats be firing the town!" thought Mehitable, with the calmness of utter despair. "Newark is doomed!"

She felt as though she were in the midst of a nightmare as she ran after the invaders, who were hustling their victim down Broad Street. The


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 British soldiers were joined by another group, with another prisoner, as Mehitable pursued them, using every tree and fence corner to protect herself as she flew along.

Someone ran past her in the opposite direction. "Academy's burning!" shrieked an unknown voice.

Mehitable never forgot that night. She fell more than once upon the sharp ice, and more than once she rose with her teeth gritted and useless tears in her eyes. Always, however, she managed to keep the tragic, marching group in sight. Once, one of Master Hedden's guards, glancing back, thought he saw an avenger after them, and raising his musket, he fired. Mehitable, dropping behind a fence, prayed that he would not return. Later, peeping, she saw that the rash guard was being heartily kicked by his superior officer in reprimand and she again commenced her Indian tactics of dodging and running, crouching and creeping.

Nearing the house of Eleazer Bruen, a staunch admirer of Master Hedden who lived on Market Street, about halfway to the river, the brutal party was halted momentarily. Staring through her tears, Mehitable saw Bruen dash out of the house and, at the risk of incurring the anger of the red-coats, throw a blanket about his poor friend's shoulders. Just then, the western sky behind them flared and the girl was near enough to hear the leader of the cruel band exclaim:


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 "Gad! 'Tis good we are on our way. I told Lumm the countryside would be swarming to the rescue! These farmers are fighters when they arm! Forward!"

It was at this point that Mehitable, spent, cold, turned back. She was sure, now, from the direction they were taking, that the enemy intended to march Master Hedden, with his fellow prisoner, straight across the frozen rivers and Newark meadows—which were in reality swamps—to New York.

Master Bruen caught sight of her as she stepped out into the moonlight from behind a tree. He hailed her, inviting her into his house.

"Nay, I must get back to the injured wife!" she said, and at his shocked question, she related what had happened.

Master Bruen's face worked. "Poor, poor Joseph!" The tears ran down Bruen's face. "His feet will be frozen—this be one o' the worst nights I have ever known! An he be thrown into the sugar-house prison, I fear he will lose his feet!"

Mehitable cried out at that. Then, as though she could bear no more, she turned and went swiftly away, leaving Master Bruen to go alone into his house, stunned and saddened by the misfortune which had overtaken his friend.

Nearing the center of the village once more,


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 Mehitable began to meet hurrying groups of townsmen. The doors or houses, as news of the British retreat began to be circulated, were commencing to be flung open, windows were being unbarred and unshuttered. Here and there, scattered red-coats and patriots fired at each other, and once Mehitable, running through the snowy streets, felt her foot kick some object. She picked it up mechanically and, discovering it to be a pistol, put it under her arm and went on.

She was caught in an eddy of people milling helplessly before the burning structure of the Academy which, built in 1774, had been Newark's pride. Fascinated, she paused for an instant to watch window panes cracking outward from the intense heat, and as she stood there, she was accosted by a panting, frightened little figure.

"Hitty!" A hoarse, babyish voice spoke her name, two grimy hands jerked at her cape. Looking down, Mehitable recognized the trembling, weeping youngster as Master Hedden's small son.

Drawing him to the edge of the crowd, she knelt down and put her arms around his shuddering little body.

"Hitty," began the child again, "I saw"

"You saw what, dear?" she encouraged him. "Why, however did you get here?"

"I climbed out o' a back window at home. I


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 was scared!" said the little fellow. He sobbed aloud, all at once. "I saw—you know—that man who supped wi' us to-night"

"Yes—Captain Freeman?" Mehitable's heart jumped. Her arms tightened instinctively around the child. "What about him, dear?" she asked steadily.

"Nay, how can I tell ye and you hold me so tightly!" protested the little boy, then, as Mehitable dropped her hands to her sides, he leaned over and whispered importantly in her ear: "I saw two men take him into an old house—an old, old house all broken and—and—with no one in it, Hitty! They had him tied—he could not walk very well—and I followed 'cause I liked him, he told me such nice stories this even afore supper." Here the little fellow paused, choked. "Oh, Hitty, what have they done wi' my father?" he suddenly whimpered, remembrance rushing upon him.

"The British are taking him to New York Town, dear; but don't you fret—we will get him back again!" Mehitable comforted him, every inch of her protesting at losing precious time. "And now," she said quietly, "go on about Captain Freeman. Mayhap you and I can go and help him!"

"Truly!" The child squared delighted little shoulders. "Come, Hitty—I will show you the way!" And he darted away.


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 But Mehitable called him back. "Tell me more, first, dear—Hitty does not want the bad men to tie her, too!" she commanded. Then, as the little boy returned obediently to her, she patted his arm. "Tell Hitty all about it!" she coaxed.

"I went up the broken stairs after him—Hitty, why does no one live in that funny old house?—and—and—the two men tied Captain Freeman to a bed," answered the child. "And then—I ran away, because they were going to light their tinder boxes, they said, and—and—burn the poor captain all up, and—and—I did-dunt want to be burned!"

Mehitable sprang to her feet. "Come, let us go! Show Hitty the way!" she cried, and with the little fellow running on before her, she flew down Broad Street and around corners until he stopped and pointed triumphantly.

It was, as the child had said, a deserted old house. But in an upper window the girl caught sight of a light. Swiftly she turned to her little companion. "Dear, can you act like a big, big man?" she asked, kneeling down once more before him.

"Aye, Hitty!" He nodded his curly head. "Aye, I can!"

"Then run for help! Stop the first men ye come to—so they be not red-coats—and ask them to come and get poor Captain Freeman out o' danger!" She placed her hands, folded together as


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 though in prayer, against the childish breast. "That is what a real man would do!" she told him smilingly.

"I will, Hitty!" And, with a smothered shout, the little fellow turned and scampered away.

Creeping forward, then, Mehitable softly pushed open the crazy front door which hung ajar upon its hinges. She had often passed the old place in happier days and even then, in the bright sunshine, it had seemed to stare back at her haggardly, ghost-ridden, a storehouse of sad memories.

She entered the musty hall noiselessly, catching her breath as a rustling and a scamper near by proclaimed some live thing. Tis a rat!" she reassured herself, and grasping the pistol, which she had retained all this time, more firmly in her hand she tiptoed across the hall to the foot of the stairs.

Again she paused. Vacant rooms opening from the hall seemed peopled with dim figures. A moving shadow that crept across the floor toward her made her heart thump until she discovered it to be caused by a shutter, flapping and banging in the wind outside.

She looked up the rickety stairs. From above she now heard voices, a man's harsh laugh. And at that laugh, she flung up her head. One step and stop! Two steps and stop! The third step creaked and, crushing the back of one hand against


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 her mouth to keep from screaming, she crouched in terror. Listened.

"What's that?" she heard someone say.

A laugh barked out again. "What, Simpson—hast gotten woman's nerve? Why, 'tis the wind, fool!"

"I tell ye, Hawtree," Simpson's voice came back at the other angrily, "I will not have ye call me fool even in jest!"

The other laughed loudly. "In jest! Ho, that be good! A jest, indeed!"

There was a sullen silence—then, evidently cowed by the older man, Simpson could be heard smashing wood, muttering savagely.

"For firewood!" thought Mehitable sickly. "I wonder an it be!"

Spurred on by the awful thought, she went up the rest of the stairs at a bound and came abruptly into a room. Her circular glance took in the whole scene, even as her shaking hand slowly steadied and aimed her pistol at the two men on the farther side of the room.

"Gentlemen, ye are my prisoners!" she said. And almost laughed in their astonished faces.

It was Simpson who tried to reach the guns, thrown carelessly into a corner. Mehitable threatened him angrily with her pistol and he crouched back upon his heels. To the right of the door, facing her upon a ragged pallet, bound and gagged,


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 lay Anthony Freeman. His horrified eyes begged her to flee. Mehitable looked at the Tories in the flickering light of a single candle.

"Ye are in direct line with one another!" she told them grimly. "A ball has been known to go through two people at once! Better remain where ye be!"

There must have been something deadly in her strained, desperate young voice, for the two rogues licked their lips furtively and stayed as she had ordered. Only Hawtree spoke.

"We will not hurt ye, mistress!"

Mehitable stared at him scornfully. "Say ye so!" she ejaculated in pretended surprise. Then her voice changed abruptly. "See that ye do not move! I will decide what to do from now on!"

At last Hawtree broke the silence with a sniff. "Decide quickly, mistress!" he begged. "The house be fired!"

As he spoke, a tongue of flame shot out from the corner where Simpson had been piling wood and the girl saw, with growing horror, that fire had been smouldering there.

"Very well—cross to the door!" Like the snap of a whip her voice gave the order. The two Tories got to their feet and marched across the room to the door. "Halt!"

As they came to a full stop, Mehitable moved backward toward the window. "I am at the


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 window, Master Hawtree!" she said then and his quick glance told him it was so. "I sent for help before I entered here and now I see the men coming. They are running! Heaven help ye an they catch ye to-night, for their tempers be not of the best! An ye desire to live, therefore, sirs, you had better make for the rear o' the house and so escape that way. Ye'd better not return! Now—go!"

The two men, like arrows shot from the same bow, burst out of the room together, and Mehitable could hear them clattering down the rickety stairs. With a bound, she was at the door, peering over the ancient banisters. She saw them disappear beneath the stair balcony, toward the rear, as she had ordered. But she was wise in their ways, and it was not until she had run to a window at the back and had seen them fleeing madly across back lots that she was satisfied.

Rushing back, then, Mehitable threw her pistol upon the floor and tried to beat out the flames which, during her short absence, had gained considerable headway. But as fast as she caught and destroyed one tongue of fire, another would reach up tendrils of desire, and she soon saw that it was hopeless.

She bent over the pallet. "I cannot put the fire out!" she half sobbed. "Oh, Anthony—'tis beyond me!"

She ran swift fingers over his recumbent form.


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 "Feet tied! Arms tied behind ye! And gagged!" She checked them off and looked around her despairingly. Smoke was now billowing and swirling up from the pile of wood in ever-increasing spirals. "I have no knife!" Then, as a gurgle came from Freeman's lips, she raised his head and tugged at the kerchief which thrust open his mouth. To her joy, the knots gave way—Hawtree having tied them more carelessly, figuring that, with hands and feet tied, Captain Freeman would have no means to reach the gag.

"Take a stick and burn the knots on my hands!" directed the young officer as soon as the gag was out of his mouth.

Mehitable shrank back. "Nay, I dare not! I might burn ye!"

"Do as I bid you!" He spoke so sternly that, from sheer surprise, Mehitable picked up a burning stick of wood and carried it over to the pallet. But it was too tedious a job. The hemp refused to burn at once. And already the thick smoke had them choking and gasping.

"The pistol—fire it and the ball will cut the knot on my wrist an ye hold it steady!" panted the man.

Mehitable wrung her hands. "It is empty!" she cried. "The pistol be not loaded!"

"And ye dared to come up here unarmed!" His eyes gave her homage. "Gad, ye be brave, little Mistress Madcap!"


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 There was a short silence, Mehitable's mind grasping, refusing, seeking schemes for escape. Suddenly, Anthony Freeman spoke again.

"The others—ye said others were coming to our rescue!" Hopefully, he seemed to be listening.

Twas but a ruse!" groaned the girl. She turned upon him. "I must drag you, or we shall both be burned! I can pull you along the floor—I am strong! Roll yourself off from the cot, and I will take you beneath the arms! Thus!" And bending her lithe young back, as he obediently rolled on to the floor, she placed her arms around his chest and commenced to drag him backward.

How could she ever have thought him slender and tall, thought Mehitable despairingly! Why, he weighed pounds and pounds more than she had thought. He tried to help her by hitching himself; but she soon begged him to stop, saying that she could manage better if he made himself perfectly limp. Halfway to the door, three quarters of the way, inch by stubborn inch she conquered that long expanse of floor space. If only the smoke did not make her eyes smart so! Tears were now running down her cheeks. Freeman, hearing a pathetic sniff, spoke desperately:

"I wish ye would not try! Ah, I fear 'twill hurt ye!"

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 and again on the ice. She had no breath with which to argue the question. She simply kept on pulling—and pulling—and at last they reached the open doorway.

There a draught of fresh air heartened them. With a great lungful of it Mehitable made short work of getting him to the head of the crazy stairs. And then the accident happened! She took one step too many! A moan, a struggle for balance and her own weight tore her arms away from her burden, so that she plunged backward down the stairs.

Anthony Freeman, his back still turned to the stairs, sat petrified for a few seconds; but the fire in that near-by room did not allow him time to despair. He swung himself around as though on a pivot, so that his bound feet were upon the steps, then, like a child at play, he bumped himself rapidly to the foot where Mehitable, curled up in a heap, lay silent.

He looked up at the fire which, encouraged by the draught from the rear door Hawtree had left open, was now grinning at him through the banisters on the second floor. It must have devoured the pallet in the prison room and had burst out the door, running along a strip of old carpet left by some former tenant. How long, wondered the young man dully, would it take to come down the stairs?


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UT some good fairy must have decreed that they were not to perish by fire! Anthony Freeman, not knowing this, had made a brave effort to help himself and Mehitable by working himself over to her motionless form and trying to shove it toward the door. But looking at the door, he had groaned, for Mehitable, for some unaccountable reason, had closed it behind her upon entering. It had seemed to mock him, because with his hands tied behind him, he had not been able to open it!

Well, they must escape by the open door in the rear, he had told himself! Give them time enough, please Heaven, and they could make it! This had been denied them, however, for glancing up, he had seen that the stairs were beginning to smoulder, that a thread of flame had already licked its way across the top step.

Anthony Freeman had worked frantically, then. Grunting, pushing that inanimate body of Mehitable's before him, he had gone only half a yard or


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 so when men's shouts had sounded outside and the front door had been flung open.

The ancient, evil hallway had seemed suddenly to swarm with men. Mehitable had been caught up in a pair of strong arms, knives had been whipped out, and Captain Freeman's legs and arms had become once more his own. Rising, he would have fallen, however, from sheer numbness, had not someone supported him and afterward helped him to safety.

It was a day or two after these exciting events that Mehitable, awakening from a doze, looked around her weakly. A lady turned away from the window and approached the girl's bed.

"Art hungry?" she asked kindly.

"Nay, Mistress Roberts." Mehitable shook her head.

Mistress Roberts seated herself beside the bed and, taking out a gray sock, commenced to knit. As she knitted, her face grew very sad, as well it might be. For she was Master Hedden's sister who, hastening across lots from her own home, upon hearing of his arrest, had remained to take charge of the disorganized household. To her care, then, Mehitable had been committed, after good Doctor Burnet had pronounced her uninjured save for minor bruises and the burns upon her hands.

"Hath heard from Master Hedden yet?" asked Mehitable, now.


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 Mistress Roberts sorrowfully shook her head. "Nay," she sighed. "And his poor, wounded wife—how she doth long for news!"

There was a little silence. Then Mehitable cleared her throat self-consciously.

"Hast heard from Captain Freeman?" she asked far too casually.

Mistress Roberts looked at her in a kind, unobserving manner. "Nay—he went back to Morris Town."

Back to Morris Town! Back without one word of inquiry or interest!

"I hope I am not going to weep!" thought Mehitable, agonizedly to herself, blinking very fast. "He does not care! Nay, but I will not weep!"

"The snow glare doth hurt your eyes, I fear!" remarked Mistress Roberts, glancing up from her knitting. She rose and, going over to the window, raised it and struggled with the shutter, which she finally got to close. "There—that be better, forsooth!" she said in a satisfied tone.

"Thank'ee," said Mehitable, a little gruffly. (He does not care! He does not care!)

There was a scrambling noise outside the door. Soon it opened, and a shy little face peered rather frightenedly into the darkened room.

"Come in here, sir!" Mistress Roberts smiled at her young nephew. "Come in and tell Hitty what ye did the other night!"


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 The little boy slid around the corner of the lintel and, step by step, finger in mouth, approached the bed.

"I ran away. I climbed out a window and ran away. Then I saw ye, Hitty."

"Aye—so ye did!" said Mehitable.

"I went on and on, after I left the old house," said the child. "I went to my aunt's in Wad—Wadsesson, Hitty—I did not want to come home. The red-coats might a-got me! My aunt brought me here in a sled, with two horses pulling it!" he added proudly.

Suddenly, Mehitable, regardless of her bandaged hands, leaned out of bed and caught him to her. "Little lad—so brave!" she cried, hugging him. She kissed his curly head and released him, to his squirming relief. "And ye were a big man!" she told him solemnly.

"Truly, Hitty! And did I help ye?" he asked with shining eyes. And when she nodded seriously, he regarded her delightedly. "But I don't like to be kissed, Hitty," he said in an aggrieved voice, moving precipitately toward the door, to vanish upon laughter from the two who were watching him.

Underneath the fun, however, Mehitable's heart continued to ache. Back came the old, suspicious anger, the doubt and the turmoil which Charity's fairy tale had aroused that time. Anthony Free-


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 man was, after all, just a play-boy, an unstable person of moods and fancies, a young man to whom the interest of the moment meant much and 'to-morrow nothing at all!

And what about the unknown lady Anthony had kissed at that long-ago masque—the lady he had told he loved! Most wonderful for Nancy and John, this clearing up of the little mystery! Aye, said Mehitable's tormented young heart—but what about me!

"Art hungry?" asked Mistress Roberts again, out of a somber silence.

Mehitable watched her flashing needles and sighed. "Nay," she said.

"Art hungry, Hitty?" It was Mistress Hedden's daughter this time, sticking her head in at the door. Her cheerful young face was like a bright gleam of sunshine. "Mother seems better and John hath come," she said radiantly.

"Nay, I'm not hungry!" said Mehitable gloomily. All the world seemed happy! "All the world—save me!" thought Mehitable, turning her face to the wall.

"Oh," said Mistress Roberts fussily. "That light doth indeed hurt your eyes! That be right! Turn away from it and rest them! Try to sleep, my child!"

She did not hear the howling, mocking laughter of Mehitable's heart.


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 But a few days later, being a strong, healthy young person, Mehitable, from old Dulcie's back, was waving farewell to a group of faces in Mistress Hedden's parlor window and trotting briskly down the street, with her father, mounted, beside her.

"Are ye sure ye can bear the long ride back to the Mountain?" asked Squire Condit anxiously, as they passed Newark's Four Corners, the village center where the town pump, some ten feet below the ground, was located. Villagers, coming and going from the pump, nodded cordial greetings as the Squire passed, for he was a prime favorite, and many were the nudges and looks of interest directed at Mehitable, too.

"Aye," answered Mehitable. "See, my mittens do protect my hands! Besides, the burns be on the backs, so when I hold Dulcie's bridle, thus, it does not hurt! The good beast seems to realize and obeys my slightest touch, too—don't ye, old Dulcie!" And the girl leaned forward to place her smooth cheek between the old horse's ears, which pricked back intelligently.

Nearing the Mountain Society settlement, as Orange was then called, Squire Condit noticed Mehitable's look of exhaustion and abruptly drew rein before the Ranfield Tavern.

"Come—let us stop here and rest, Hitty! May-


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 hap I can obtain possession o' some conveyance and drive ye the remainder o' the way home," he said, affectionate concern in his face as he helped her down from her horse.

"After a short rest, I shall be all right!" murmured Mehitable, lingering.

"Go ye on into the tavern, Hitty," he bade, noticing her hesitancy. "Or"—he remembered, all at once, the unpleasant episode which had occurred at the Ranfield Tavern before and thought Mehitable but natural in her reluctance to enter—"mayhap ye would rather ride on to Samuel Munn's tavern?"

But Mehitable's glance had happened to rest upon a little rush-woven basket still attached to old Dulcie's saddle, and she straightened her weary figure in sudden decision.

"Nay, let us rest here, Father," she said abruptly.

Rather puzzled, the Squire glanced at her, then, evidently granting her the whimsies of her sex, he nodded and turned away with the horses.

"Very well—go into the house. I will turn the beasts over to someone at the stable and see an Master Ranfield hath any suggestion to make as to a sled!"

Mehitable's feet were rather reluctant, though, as she went in through the tavern door. Only her sense of curiosity, patriotism, and, perhaps not so


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 fine a reason, her dislike for Mistress Ranfield and the girlish desire to see that lady paid back for her meanness that long-ago night, could have carried her forward.

The taproom was deserted. In the big fireplace, a lazy fire was snapping and sputtering. A steady murmur of voices came from the kitchen, and hither our heroine crept.

"It cannot hurt an I seat myself here beside the kitchen door!" she told herself excitedly. "Surely no one can prove I eavesdropped!"

But for all her words, Mehitable's heart began to pound rather heavily as she sat there, her bandaged hands lying motionless in her lap. Presently, the murmur developed into a distinct conversation.

"An this be all, mistress, I'd best go!" said a voice finally.

Mehitable listened eagerly. For it was the spy Simpson's voice!

"Wait!" That was Mistress Ranfield's voice, speaking hurriedly. "I must warn ye someone hereabouts doth know our secret. My husband stupidly did empty a basket which I had full o' my belongings, including letters. All of the letters I did recover, save a piece o' one which became torn i' the man's hurry to dump the basket's contents. He said he gave the basket to"

"But why kept ye letters which might prove said a


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 dangerous witnesses against ye?" demanded Simpson's voice sharply.

"Nay"—Mistress Ranfield's shrewish voice assumed a whine—"I be sorry"

"Sorry!" Simpson's voice hurled back scorn at her. "Much good thy sorrow will do thee when the noose be drawn tight!"

There was a sharp cry from Mistress Ranfield at these sinister words. Then silence. At last came a sigh from the woman.

"Well, the piece o' letter be gone," she said resignedly. Came the sound of a chair being scraped over the floor. Footsteps! "I know, at any rate, who hath the information and" Suddenly the kitchen door flew open, and Mehitable found herself staring up into Mistress Ranfield's amazed face. "And here she be now!"

"Who?" Simpson peered over his fellow Tory's shoulder.

Mehitable sprang to her feet. Too late, at the look of triumph upon their faces, she realized how foolish she had been! Affairs were not turning out as she had planned at all, she told herself shakily. She was to have confronted Mistress Ranfield quietly and coldly in the presence of the woman's husband and Squire Condit and force the woman to give up her odious calling!

With a wild glance at the door, Mehitable took a step forward. The next instant, Simpson had


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 shoved Mistress Ranfield rudely aside and had leaped to Mehitable's side. His hand closed heavily upon her shoulder.

"Not so fast, mistress!" he told her fiercely. "When did ye enter this inn? And how much hath ye overheard?"

Mehitable flung up her head and looked at him proudly. "What concern o' yours, ye—spy!" she stormed.

Tense silence overwhelmed the three. The fire continued to sputter, and somewhere, Mehitable noticed vaguely, a clock ticked. Then Simpson, his handsome face malicious and ugly, turned to Mistress Ranfield.

"A rope for the rebel!" he ordered.

The inn mistress's thin yellow face slowly went dull red. "Ye"—she stopped and licked her lips; there was an odd, breathless hope in her voice, and her hands twitched, like a cat's paws about to play with a mouse—"ye mean to flog the rebel maid?" she asked.

But Simpson's face flushed. A pang went through Mehitable as his likeness to Tabitha showed momentarily.

"Nay," he said shortly. "We will take her into the kitchen and tie her to a chair—ye be sure your husband be not home?—Aye?—Then," he ended grimly, "can we discover how much she knows!"

So the two schemers pushed Mehitable out into


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 the tavern kitchen, which was deserted save for themselves. Casting one despairing glance over her shoulder—for where was her father all this time?—the girl went, docile enough. And maintained her composure while the hemp was being wound around her, binding her fast to a chair, until Mistress Ranfield grasped her mittened hands. Then Mehitable winced with pain.

"Stay!" And Simpson tore the mittens from her bandaged hands. "So the rescuer's hands came to grief!" he sneered. But a remnant of decency made him forbid the inn mistress to truss the burned hands.

"A gag?" inquired Mistress Ranfield, thrusting a roll of cloth toward him.

"Nay," he answered scornfully, "how can we discover what she knows an we gag her? Now, mistress"—he turned roughly to the girl—"best speak up, for ye have no bully brother to come to your rescue this time!"

Suddenly, a new voice spoke from the threshold: "But I am here!" it said pleasantly, and Mehitable, twisting herself in her chair, saw the young man, Aaron Harrison, whom her cousin, Jemima Condit, had married, and had left a widower in the previous November. "What be the trouble here?" he asked sternly, coming forward as his eyes rested in surprise upon Mehitable. "Hold!" There was the sight of his drawn pistol, all at once, and


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 Simpson, about to escape, turned slowly back, his hands held high above his head.

"Now," repeated Aaron Harrison, "what ill business goes on here?"

Unfortunately, his eyes went back to Mehitable for an instant, and in that instant Simpson saw his chance to escape. There was the sound of a chair crashing to the floor, the swift flight of a body hurtling itself toward the door, the belated flash of a pistol, and then they were all staring rather stupidly at the empty space Simpson had previously occupied.

At once, Mistress Ranfield became all concern. "Indeed, Major Harrison"—she fluttered over to Mehitable's chair and commenced to untie the knots of hemp—"indeed, 'tis well ye came when ye did! I was most frightened. For what could lone women do against such a desperate character as that unhappy young man!"

Mehitable gasped. Such amazing effrontery as this fairly took her breath away! But Aaron Harrison, turning back from the door whence he had strode to look out, gazed down sternly at the sly figure before him. Mistress Ranfield, at that, muttering that the fire in the taproom needed mending, got rather hastily to her feet. She was stopped, however, upon the threshold, by the young soldier's grim voice.

"Mistress," said Aaron Harrison, "try not to


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 deceive me! Ye are a suspect—indeed, e'en now there be proof o' your duplicity lodged wi' headquarters. To be proven a spy, whether man or woman, is to run the risk o' hanging! Be warned, now, for danger hovers o'er ye!" Then, as the inn mistress, ashen-faced, stumbled from the room, he turned to Mehitable and his expression changed. "Let me unbind ye, Hitty!" he said, an odd breathlessness in his voice.

"Thank ye, Aaron! Let us go into the other room—I like it not here!" Mehitable, as soon as she was free, stood up and walked toward the door. "Where can Father be! Well," she looked at him wonderingly, "what is it, Aaron?"

The young man, following her into the empty taproom, stood gazing at her absently. "Hitty," he burst out at last, "I was upon my way to your father's house! Canst guess why?"

Mehitable, gazing at him in the utmost astonishment as he sat down beside her on the inglenook bench, suddenly dropped her eyes at the tremendous meaning she read in his all at once.

But with realization came strong aversion to his meaning. Always Aaron had been a friend of the family, a brave young soldier—for he was a major in the American army—and likable, yet always the girl had thought of him as her cousin's lover and husband. Now the knowledge that he was seeking to replace his lost bride and that he would like to


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 from Presidents and Supreme Court Judges down to State Governors and Assemblymen.

It seems that the sole purpose of all land legislation during the last three quarters of a century was to encourage landlordism and land speculation and to rob. the farming population for the benefit of gigantic corporations. Uncle Sam squandered natural resources like a drunken sailor; or, better, he robbed his nephews and nieces like an unscrupulous guardian to enrich a few of his pets.

All through the northwest we find the railroad corporations selling the land, which Uncle Sam was kind enough to give them for nothing, to subsidiary lumber companies, and with the proceeds thereof built the roads.

These lumber companies barely paid more than a few dollars per acre for the finest timber land in the world, but the price more than paid for the building of the roads. In due time the majestic forest was converted into lumber. The cut and burned-over land, with nothing left on it but the blackened stumps, was sold to settlers for from ten to fifteen dollars per acre. In this ingenious way the farmer was made to pay for the building of roads which were to rob him ever after. Incidentally he also helped the struggling lumber trust to bear the heavy expense entailed in the devastation of our forests.

Even when the government gave the land direct to the settlers under the homestead acts it was more from a desire to furnish freight and passenger traffic for the subsidized roads than to help the farmer to land.

To-day our public domain is a thing of the past, and what little land there is still open for homesteading is too poor to raise a fuss on with two Irishmen and a gallon of whisky.

Where other enlightened people have steadily striven towards the abolition of land monopoly, our own government made it easy to monopolize the soil. There is absolutely no limit as to how much of God's earth an individual may hog in the land of the free and the home of the brave. Even foreign landlords have been encouraged to take as much of the pie as desired.

Here, for instance, are a few English beneficiaries of Uncle Sam's generosity:


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 put Mehitable in her place came as a real shock, so that the girl's cheeks burned and her bandaged hands fell to trembling. She raised a hand in embarrassed protest.

"Nay, Aaron!" she began.

But the young soldier spoke huskily. "Ah, Hitty, ye do not know how lonely I've been since—since November, Baby Ira and I!"

"But, Aaron" Once more Mehitable essayed to speak, and once more the soldier stopped her.

"Nay, Hitty, give me no answer this day!" he pleaded earnestly. "Think the matter o'er! Mayhap ye could be more happy wi' us—the baby and I—than ye feel for now. Go to see the little fellow—Jemima's mother hath him for awhile—and let his baby face speak for us both!"

A little silence fell. Mehitable looked into the fire with dreaming eyes. Often she had heard light-minded girls boast of their conquests, counting over their proposals triumphantly as a miser does his pieces of gold. But here was neither trie umph nor amusement! Only a sober-faced young father asking for companionship and understanding.

"Ah, Aaron," said Mehitable pitifully. She choked. "Life's so—so—queer!" she said breathlessly.

"Life can be—wonderful!" he said wistfully,


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 touching her bandaged hand gently. "For two—or three—together!"

Then, as the girl sat silent, hard thoughts came. Anthony Freeman did not care! Very well—Mehitable tossed her head—she would show him that she, in turn, did not care, show him, too, in a way that could not be mended! And with this not very laudable resolve, Mehitable stumbled to her feet.

"Aye, Aaron," she said breathlessly, "aye, I will go and—and—see the baby! And," her gaze sought the floor, "ye may come anon for your answer!"

Then, as both stood silent and rather ill-at-ease for a moment, with that flat feeling which always follows a climax, the door to the taproom opened.

"Art ready, Hitty?" asked Squire Condit's hearty voice. "How now, Aaron?" He nodded cordially to the young soldier. "Art going our way? Hitty tell ye her exciting adventures i' the Town by the River? Poor maid burned her hands quite badly! I do protest," he turned to Mehitable, "I ha' tramped halfway to the Mountain and back again for that sled! Well, Aaron?"

"Nay, I thank ye kindly—I ha' my horse outside," answered the soldier, his gaze upon the down-bent face beside him. "And—Hitty did not tell me o' her burned hands. We—we—were talking o' other matters."


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 "I see," said the Squire drily. "Well, Hitty, art ready?" His tone changed to impatience as Mehitable did not move.

The girl started. "Aye, Father," she answered then, with a catch in her breath. (Ah, Anthony!) "Aye," her glance flashed back at the young soldier, half daring, half desolate, "aye, ready for anything!"


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OLLOWED, then, the long, leaden-gray days of midwinter. It was an extreme one of terrible cold, and even Mehitable, although she soon recovered from her adventures at Newark, was glad to hover over the fire which Squire Condit and Amos, the man of all work, kept roaring in the big kitchen fireplace.

But at last the girl could stand it no longer. "I cannot remain cooped up one hour more!" she burst out one afternoon. She looked at her mother, placidly spinning in the inglenook. "I think"—but here a blush stained Mehitable's cheeks—"I think I shall go down to Uncle Daniel Condit's. Poor Aunt Ruth needs a bit o' cheer since Jemima's death!"

Mistress Condit glanced up with a smile. "What said ye, Hitty?" she asked.

Mehitable raised her voice above the noise of the spinning-wheel, repeating herself. Mistress Condit thought idly, "How the fire's heat doth redden the child's cheeks!" and nodded her consent. And


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 soon Mehitable, bustling about, was ready for departure.

"Farewell, Mother!" She stooped to drop a light kiss upon the fair, faded cheek her mother serenely held up. "Tell Cherry where I went. What a long nap she be taking!"

Then, scuffling out through the deep snow, Mehitable directed Amos to saddle Dulcie.

"But, indeed, I like not for Dulcie to go out wi' her lame knee!" protested Amos with the privilege of an old servant.

"Oh, Amos!" The girl looked at him laughingly. "How ye do baby the horse!" And later, deciding Amos was overly careful, Mehitable put her to a trot. But soon poor Dulcie showed serious strain, for she began to limp at once.

"La!" Mehitable spoke aloud vexedly. Tis just my fortune! Well, I will leave ye at Uncle Dan's, Dulcie, and return on foot!"

A little later, she entered her aunt's sad kitchen like a bit of animated sunshine.

"How now, my dear!" It was her Aunt Ruth who spoke shiveringly from her place beside the fire. Beside her, as she knit, was a cradle with a sleeping child in it. She kept the cradle in constant motion with her foot upon one of the rockers.

"Indeed, we be very well at our house, Auntie!" answered Mehitable brightly, slipping out of her cardinal and warming her hands as she looked down


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 eagerly at the baby. "That is—all except Dulcie!" she added jokingly.

"Dulcie?" Her aunt drew down fretful brows.

"My horse," explained Mehitable, smiling. "Amos scarcely allowed me to ride her this afternoon; but forsooth, I guess he was right. She be quite lame. I fear I will have to leave her here and walk home."

"Mayhap your uncle will come before ye leave, Hitty. Then he can give ye a lift across the Valley," responded Mistress Condit.

There was a brief pause, during which the baby stirred. "Oh," begged Mehitable, "do let me take him! The sweet person!"

At her aunt's nod of permission, the girl bent over the cradle and carefully lifted the former's grandson, while Mistress Condit took her foot off the cradle rocker with a grimace of pain.

"It be all cramped," she explained. She studied the baby, a fine, sturdy little fellow of six months, with dispassionate eyes, as he crowed and laughed in the girl's arms.

"Aye, he be a good baby!" acknowledged the grandmother in her sad, crushed voice. "Mayhap, some day, I shall understand, though, why his mother had to give up her life for his, Hitty!"

"How proud Jemima would have been o' him!" exclaimed Mehitable, dancing around the kitchen with the baby. "See, Ira, that be your mother!


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 Throw a kiss to the pretty lady, your mother! So young and so pretty!"

She stopped, as she spoke, before the silhouette of a young girl and held the baby up. The little, wandering eyes, however, did not focus upon the silhouette. Instead, they rolled toward a red apple upon a near-by table.

"That be all he cares!" exclaimed the grandmother bitterly.

"Ah, don't, Aunt Ruth!" protested Mehitable pitifully.

"Nay, Hitty, think me not hard!" Her aunt rose hastily and, coming close to the girl, took the baby out of her arms almost as though she were jealous. "I do love Ira for himself!" She crushed the infant against her, and Mehitable looked to see his mouth draw down in a whimper; but, instead, he laughed. His grandmother, at that, covered his soft round head with kisses and carried him off to be fed.

Presently, she returned with a thick leather portfolio beneath her arm. Replacing the babe in his cradle, where he lay gurgling contentedly after his milk, she swept a clear space upon the table and opened the case.

"I don't believe I ever showed ye the diary my Jemima kept for almost six years," said the bereaved mother softly. "She had written much o' these troublous times, Hitty, and I doubt not little


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 Ira will value this greatly some day. It may even be of interest to others, years hence, who knows!"

Mehitable bent over the diary eagerly. It was contained in a handsome boxlike case and was written in a fine, slanting penmanship which did the country girl who had been her cousin great credit, for this was before the time of dame schools, and only boys were encouraged to seek education.

"Read it, Hitty!" said Mistress Condit. So, stooping lightly, the young girl read aloud an entry.

Monday, which was called Training Day. I rode with my Dear father Down to see them train, there Being Several Companyes met together. I thought It would Be a mournful Sight to See, if they had Been fighting in earnest and how Soon they will be Called forth to the field of war we cannot tell, for by. What we Can hear the Quarrels are not Like to be made up Without bloodshed. I have Jest Now heard Say that all hopes of conciliation between Briten and her Colonies are at an end, for Both the King and his Parliament have announced our Destruction; fleets and armies are Preparing with utmost diligence for that Purpose!

Mehitable looked up. "That was just before the war, wasn't it?" she asked.

Her aunt, who had been listening with the tears rolling down her cheeks, lifted a knuckly hand to wipe her eyes. "Aye, Hitty," she said simply.


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 "It brings Jemima back, reading her diary does!" said Mehitable in a hushed voice. "It makes her so real again, Aunt Ruth!"

"Aye," nodded Jemima's mother. Tis wonderful!" Her hand patted the diary lovingly.

But Mehitable looked very sober, for she knew, at that moment, that she must tell Aaron Harrison she could not consent to fill her dead cousin's place.

"Ah, no, no!" she cried out silently. "I cannot be second choice, after all!"

Aloud, she said, as she went to find her cape, "Then ye will ask Uncle Dan to bed Dulcie for me? I will come for her soon."

"Aye! Or mayhap Aaron will be here soon—he comes whene'er he can to see his baby," nodded her aunt. "Farewell, Hitty. Come again!"

"Good-bye, little Ira!" Feeling strangely remorseful, Mehitable bent over the cradle again before going out into the wintry dusk.

She found, to her disgust, trudging off down the Swinefield road that led to the settlement of the Mountain Society, that she was not to be alone, for Benjamin Williams, whom she knew to be a bitter partisan of the King, accompanied her willynilly until he turned off at the junction of the First Road with the Swinefield one. As soon as his back was turned, she made a naughty little face after him, and was caught full in the act by a pretty


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 woman, who, followed by a Negro slave, was coming up the road from the direction of the settlement.

"Fie, fie, Hitty!" she laughed.

"Nay, would ye not like to do the same, Mistress Harrison?" demanded Mehitable boldly.

Mistress Katurah Harrison laughed and blushed at that, for it was well known that she was a lady of high spirit. "Mayhap, Hitty, mayhap!" she admitted, still laughing, passing the girl to go on to her home at the foot of the Mountain on the Northfield road.

How lonely we would have thought the girl's homeward way! Occasional farmhouses broke the monotony of field and forest; but always, upon her left, stretched the swamp, dark and mysterious even in winter. Mehitable plodded along uncomplainingly, however, her thoughts dwelling upon the sad fate of Jemima Condit, her cousin, who had found love and motherhood and death all in one short year.

At last, though, she came out of her reverie with a start to find that the dusk had deepened to darkness, that the candles from Master Ned Tomkins's inn at Freemantown shone out warningly. She hastened her steps a trifle, for she knew her mother would worry at a late return. Besides, she disliked passing any public inn, for there were apt to be loiterers who, seeing her alone, might attempt


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 unpleasant gallantries. To her disagreeable urprisesurprise [sic], then, as she drew abreast the inn, a party of horsemen issued forth and one of them accosted her.

She started to run, but the young man who had spoken to her ran after her.

"Hitty! Hitty! Are ye daft, then?" called a voice, and glancing over her shoulder, the girl saw that it was her brother, John Condit, who was pursuing her. She stopped abruptly and looked at him crossly.

"Eh, John—ye ought to commend me 'stead o' scolding me!" she protested sharply. She retraced her steps and her tone softened. "What are ye doing here, John?" she exclaimed, a broad smile dawning upon her face.

"I am with His Excellency's party. But why are ye walking alone this late, Hitty?" John kissed her. "His Excellency be looking your way, Hitty," he admonished her.

The girl swept a curtsey in the direction of a massive figure seated upon a horse before the inn. General Washington greeted her kindly and spoke to a slender, sandy-haired young man about to mount his horse near by. "General La Fayette," he said, "this is Mistress Condit, sister o' our aide, Captain Condit, sir."

To Mehitable's secret embarrassment, the young Frenchman bounded off from his horse and dashing


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 over to her, seized and imprinted a kiss upon her hand.

"Mam'zelle, eet is a shame!" he exclaimed. "We have but now finished the so excellent dinner—cabbage and—and—flesh o' the pig. Pork? Ah, yes, cabbage and pork! Eet ees a pity you did not sooner arrive!"

"Master Tomkins did himself proud," remarked John Condit with a quiet smile.

"But why did ye not invite His Excellency to stop at our house, John?" asked Mehitable quickly and reproachfully.

"Nay, it be too much to ask o' any housewife, save in necessity," General Washington answered for John. "We might have gone on to the Widow Ball, whom I call my cousin," he added. "But 'twas better so. Master Tomkins was ready and able to serve us! But come, my child, an ye wish to ride wi' your brother, ye had best mount, for we start!"

"Is General Washington related to the Widow Ball, John—truly?" exclaimed Mehitable as, riding double, they trotted after the other horsemen. "Think o' one o' our own neighbors being his cousin!"

John laughed at the awe in her voice. "He calls her cousin—meeting her and comparing notes wi' her, they think themselves second cousins by marriage through his mother, Mary Ball, and her husband, Timothy Ball," he explained.


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 Tis strange Mary Ball hath not told me aught," remarked Mehitable. "I would ha' spread the news had he been my cousin!"

"Nay, not so!" returned Doctor Condit unsmilingly. "Any more than Mary hath done, for His Excellency's visits there, as everywhere about this Tory-infested country, have been more or less secret! 'Twould be a fine feather in a red-coat's cap to capture him, and rather hard," the young man finished ironically, "upon the Continental Army."

"True!" Mehitable nodded absently.

"But come, Hitty," her brother twisted himself in his saddle to peer into her face, "tell me why art walking?"

Mehitable explained her horse's lameness, and then, gazing over his shoulder at the Frenchman, La Fayette, who was riding directly ahead of them, she uttered a concerned exclamation.

"Why, John, what be the matter with that man?"

"General La Fayette?" He looked at the young Frenchman and suddenly, it seemed to him, too, that the other was riding doubled up in his saddle. John touched his spurs to his horse, and, drawing abreast the young man on the narrow road, asked what was the matter.

La Fayette turned a pallid face toward him. "M'sieu," he groaned, "I fear I have been given the poison!"


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 "Nay!" answered Doctor Condit reassuringly. "Who would want to poison ye, sir?"

"I have been given the poison, nevertheless!" insisted the Frenchman bitterly.

General Washington's attention now attracted, he turned and rode back to the others, while the rest of his aides immediately drew rein. He also, when informed by Doctor Condit what had happened, shook his head in disbelief at the sick man's conclusion.

"But let us stop here at this house and rest," he suggested kindly.

Mehitable, glancing up, was delighted to find that they had reached her own home. She slipped off from John's horse and flew up the snowy garden path.

"Mother! Cherry! Here be His Excellency!" She burst into the kitchen, startling the quiet family group around the supper table into smiling confusion.

Doctor Condit, supporting La Fayette upon his arm, entered at that moment, followed closely by General Washington.

"Rest here, sir!" commanded Mistress Condit, spreading a blanket upon the settle for the sufferer and "blazing" the fire in her capable way. "I will ha' a cup o' hot water for him, John, as soon as e'er it boils!"

In a moment or so, then, the young Frenchman


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 was sipping the hot water, exclaiming, between groans, upon his hostess's kindness. Half an hour passed, then General La Fayette got to his feet and weakly saluted his chief.

"I have made ze recovery!" he announced. "It was but the indigestion—ees that what you say, madam?—aftair all." He looked around the group of smiling, friendly faces and his eyes met Mehitable's whimsically. "I was not given ze poison! I send my apologies to ze good host!" And he blew lightly upon his fingers and waved them in the direction of Freemantown and Master Ned Tomkins.


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OUNDS!" exclaimed Mehitable in bitter disappointment. "They be not home, Cherry! And I will not go swimming in the pond an Mistress Wright be not here to keep watch for us!"

She sighed and pushed her sunbonnet back on to her neck. Charity, seated upon the pillion behind her on old Dulcie, sighed, too. All the way across the Valley they had been anticipating their cool bath beneath the willows.

"Well, let us return home," Charity was commencing, when the other interrupted her.

"Cherry, there is a letter 'R' on their gatepost!"

Both girls stared, then looked at each other in alarm. "Think ye Moody is out?" exclaimed Mehitable uneasily. Tis plain that is why the poor Wrights have fled! Doubtless they are gone to hide on the Mountain!"

"Moody!" answered Charity. "Nay, not a stick would have been left standing, nor a stone, had Moody been here!"

James Moody, a peaceable enough man before


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 the war, had been goaded by foolish neighbors into bitter Toryism, so that much of New Jersey had suffered from his anger. He had joined the loyal troops in New Jersey, had even attempted to capture, though unsuccessfully, Governor Livingston, so that wherever special pillage and destruction and cruelty had been done, his name was upon the lips of his victims.

"Ye be right," agreed Mehitable now. "But mayhap he will come!"

Charity gave a startled glance down the road, then shook her head. "Not until night, Hitty, I feel sure. Ever he seems to time his raids then!"

They slipped off from their horse with one accord, and approached the gatepost. Yes, there, unmistakably, was the letter "R" for rebel with which the British who came over into New Jersey were wont to mark their victims. As she glanced away, however, Charity caught sight of a gander near by.

"Look, Hitty, there be one o' Mistress Wright's precious geese!" She gestured toward it laughingly. "Hast ever seen him before without the other seventeen?"

Mehitable, glancing at it carelessly, suddenly looked more intently.

"Why, what has he upon his leg, Cherry? Something be around that old gander's leg, I vow! Let's catch him and see!"

At once there commenced a wild chase around


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 Mistress Wright's dooryard. Finally, the indignant fowl was cornered beside the kitchen step, both girls so intent upon spreading wide their skirts and approaching him with wary caution that, when a voice spoke behind them, they jumped nervously.

"Eh! And is this hoo ye treat my gander!" Mistress Wright and her husband, who had arrived unperceived, stood looking at them. The two girls regarded them in return rather sheepishly.

"Where have ye been, dear Mistress Wright?" asked Mehitable hastily. "I thought ye must have gone to Cranetown!"

"Cranetown!" exclaimed the old lady. "Noo, John, do'ee carry in summat oor gudes afore yo' sit!" She turned imploringly to her old husband, who had been about to seat himself upon the doorstep. With a sigh and a groan, he got up and shuffled out to the farm cart which the girls saw, now, was piled high with household goods. "I will gae in and see hoo the house has fared!" She disappeared within the house.

"Mither has been fair distracted wi' the raid!" explained Master Wright, returning with various boxes and bundles from the cart.

"Raid!" Both girls stared at him open-mouthed.

"Aye!" The old man looked at them curiously. "Was not your house marked, then?"


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 The girls shook their heads.

"We received word yesterday morn, 'Moody is out! went on the old man slowly. "It did not take us lang to pack oor wee bit o' goods and gae! Mither set her geese free, hopin' they wad stray! I see only the gander, though, so I fear t'others be missin'! Mither," he addressed his old wife, who came out the door just then, "see aught o' yer geese?"

He did not offer to search for them as, immediately worried, the old lady shaded her eyes with her hand and looked around. As she stepped into the yard, she glanced at his nonchalant attitude.

"I was jes' sae pleased, John—nothin's been touched in the house. All that's missin' be your paintin' f'r the Horse's Neck Tavern!" she said innocently.

Old Master Wright, who had remained entirely complacent at his wife's loss, darted into the house. "Nay—my paintin'! My bonnie paintin'! Woe is me!" The girls heard him wail.

"It do make a wee bit o' difference whose the loss be around here," observed his wife unsympathetically. "He cared nowt aboot ma geese! What"—she stopped and stared at the gander, who had ventured near her at that moment—"what be that around the fowl's leg?"

Mehitable giggled. "We were about to find out when you came, Mistress Wright," she ex-


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 plained demurely. "That is why we were cornering him!"

"Weel, let us see, oursel's!" cried the old lady. Then, while her husband searched high and low for his painting, in the house, she pursued her gander around and around outside. At last, after ten or more minutes of strenuous exercise in the blazing June sunshine that left them gasping and warm, they succeeded in once more cornering the gander, and Mehitable, weak and breathless from laughter, tore a paper from his leg which had been around it like an anklet.

"Why, 'tis a poem, I vow!" She spread it open and studied it interestedly.

"Nay," the old lady spoke in a peremptory tone, "let us awa' into oor cool house. 'Twill be better, there; and Feyther do be a bonnie reader," she finished pointedly.

Rather taken aback, Mehitable meekly handed the paper to old Master Wright, upon entering the kitchen, and subsided into a corner. Charity sent her a laughing glance, and then they settled down to listen as the old man read aloud in a sing-song voice:


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For a moment there was silence in the big kitchen then the old couple spoke together.

"Why, hoo did the mon know oor name?" That was Master Wright.

"Where be the change he did write aboot?" That was Mistress Wright.

Together they scurried out the door, the girls following. Master Wright forgot his sorrow over his missing sign as he ducked and ran after the elusive gander, who, becoming wise from experience, exhibited surprising powers of evasion. But Master Wright grew wise from experience, too, and at last the gander was flapping wildly beneath his arm. Feeling over the plump, feathered body, the old gentleman drew out a piece of cloth tied beneath the wing and this, when opened, displayed some jingling coins.

"Seventeen!" said Master Wright triumphantly. "Weel, Mither!"

Mistress Wright picked the coins up and carried them into the house. When the others had followed, she looked around at them innocently from her armchair.

"I ha' put it awa'—the money!" she said.


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 "Mayhap oor descendants will wish to know an the red-coats were allus cruel. This paper and the money will tell a different tale—though Heaven knows," she cast her eyes up piously, "the British need all these tales they can get! And at least, Feyther"—she looked at her old husband mischievously—"I received more for ma' loss than yo' did for yours. And it had been winter, I'd ha' said the red-coats used the paintin' for firewood!"

"Woman!" Her husband spoke sternly. Then his eyes commenced to twinkle. "Woman, ye allus be richt!" he said mildly. "That be the worst of it. But I do think they learned oor name was Wright from the name I put on ma paintin'."

At the door, waving good-bye to the two girls, Mistress Wright looked up anxiously at the sky. No longer did the June sunshine spread over the scene. While they had been drinking buttermilk in the old kitchen, an enormous black cloud had crept from the west, drifting, drifting, until now a weird purple-gray light enveloped sky and land alike.

"Feyther, hast forgot the things out in you cart?" she scolded. "Hitty," she screamed, "think yo' better not return?"

Mehitable, out of hearing, smiled and waved her hand unheedingly, and leaping into the saddle before Charity, they trotted off. Mistress Wright, watching them anxiously, saw Charity tilt her head


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 backward to glance into the sky and speak to her sister; but Mehitable shook her head violently, and in another moment, they were out of sight beyond a bend in the lane.

Master Wright had no sooner carried in his household goods than, with the tropic violence of extreme weather, the heavens seemed to open, and straightway he was drenched to the skin, so that his old wife, as though he had been out in the rain for his own pleasure, scolded him vigorously when he came into her kitchen.

Mehitable, meanwhile, was lashing poor old Dulcie to a gallop.

"Let us go back to Master Wright's!" shrieked Charity in her ear.

"Nay!" The other shook her head stubbornly. "We have come too far. We be near that old cabin that Granny Ward lived in, Cherry. I have been watching for it through this terrible rain."

And a moment or so later they did indeed come upon the cabin, standing vacant and forlorn beside the edge of the woodland. Dismounting, they both ran for the low opening, Mehitable pulling the horse after her.

The cabin was a single room with a dirt floor. A big fireplace stood at one end, and directly over their heads, as they entered, was a half-loft, open to the room. Old Dulcie had to be pulled in through the low door and beneath the loft out into


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 the center of the cabin, where she stood gazing around her with surprised eyes and erected ears. Mehitable, shaking herself like a wet terrier, glanced at the horse and burst into laughter.

"She is not used to being invited into milady's chamber, forsooth!" she cried. Sobering, she glanced at Charity through the dense gloom. "Didst know General Washington hath often visited the Widow Ball on the ridge road to Millburn and concealed his horse in her kitchen because o' passing Tories?" she asked abruptly. "John told me o't when he was home and when Mother next sent me upon an errand to Mistress Ball's, I looked in the corner o' her kitchen as ye enter, by the fireplace, ye mind"

"Oh, Hitty, what did ye see?" asked Charity breathlessly. She shrank back as a flare of lightning illuminated the dingy place. "What did ye see?"

"I saw where His Excellency's horse had chewed off the inside window ledge!" said Mehitable, bursting into a laugh.

"Nay, it is an honor, I think, to have so famous a man's horse chew one's window sill!" said Charity with dignity. Her tone changed. "Think you he will come there this summer?" she inquired eagerly.

"Nay—hush!" Mehitable leaned toward her. "General Washington hath left Morris Town—on


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 June seventh, he was at the Short Hills, awaiting results o' the battle—skirmishes at Springfield, John told me."

"The day poor Mistress Caldwell, wife o' Pastor Caldwell, was murdered in her home at Connecticut Farms," said Charity, wide-eyed.

"Aye." Mehitable nodded her head. "Oh, how dark it be, Cherry—just like night."

The next instant she uttered a scream, for a figure leaped down from the open loft and, landing lightly upon his feet, swept Mehitable a ceremonious bow.

"We meet in strange places, forsooth!" said the spy, Simpson. "And I thank ye for the information ye have given me so kindly." He bowed again mockingly and was gone.

For a long moment, neither girl moved. Then, the air seemed to turn to a sizzling yellow, the earth seemed to rock, and while old Dulcie neighed in uneasy fear, the two sisters clutched each other.

"The lightning!" screamed Charity, in a panic. "The lightning hath struck in the woods near here! I like not to be under these big trees! 'Tis safer in the open! Let me out, Hitty—I be going!"

Mehitable tried in vain to stay her; but Charity was now beyond reasoning with. She flew out the door and up the streaming lane, so that the older girl was forced to follow with their horse. Catching up to the sobbing, hysterical figure, Mehitable


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 made her mount and did so herself. They galloped toward home. Gallop as they might, however, they could not escape the storm.

"I am going to seek shelter at Munn's tavern!" declared Mehitable, when they had turned into the First Road and were headed toward the Mountain.

"Nay, that spy might be there!" shuddered Charity. "Let us be on our way, Hitty! I'd rather far risk the rain than his shifty ways!"

"But we must get in somewhere out o' the rain, Cherry!" answered Mehitable desperately. "See how ye do shiver! An ye get sick o' chills and fever, Mother will ne'er forgive me!"

"Let us go into the meeting house!" suggested Charity, all of a sudden, spying the plain stone structure, built lengthwise to the road, ahead of them.

Mehitable, in silent answer when they reached the church building, drew rein, and slipping out of her saddle, sped across the wet grass to try the heavy door. To her intense disappointment, it was locked. She fled along the front of the building, trying each of the two windows to the right of the entrance. Rounding the corner, she tried two more windows, and finally reached another door. This was unlocked and yielded beneath her eager fingers. Returning to Charity, who was sitting with bent head beneath the terrific downpour of rain, Mehitable directed her to go into the church.


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 "I will lead Dulcie around to the little grove in back. There, she will be concealed from the road, as well as partially sheltered," added Mehitable.

Entering the shadowy church a little later, she peered around and saw no sign of Charity. "Cherry!" she called softly. "Where are ye!"

"Here I be!" came back Charity's voice, echoing and reëchoing in the big bare room.

"Nay, I see ye not!" Mehitable's tone grew impatient, though she felt strange, almost sacrilegious, in using the meeting house even as a place of refuge.

Only a suppressed giggle answering her, she looked around her. She saw the plain pulpit, with its old desk taken from the old church which had been razed when this second one had been built. Above the pulpit, with its uncomfortable wooden bench placed against the wall for the minister and his assistants, were four wooden pegs for their hats. The pews flanking the pulpit right and left were reserved for the church officials. The rest of the pews were all alike, except that the women sat alone on one side of the church, while the men sat together on the other side, with the unmarried, younger element of the congregation segregated in the same way in the balconies, where a tithing-man watched over the boys. All was quiet to-day. No sign, even, of Charity until—Mehitable's eyes dropped to the level of the pew directly before her as she stood in one of the end aisles and met her


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 sister's mischievous ones staring at her over the pew door.

"Come ye into Mistress Baldwin's pew," invited Charity laughingly. "She has left a most comfortable pillow on her bench!"

Mehitable opened the door of the little boxlike arrangement and, closing it after her, sank down beside Charity.

"Nice and warm in here," she answered drowsily, refusing the pillow unselfish Charity tried to force her to accept. "The heat must have remained from last Sunday when it was so warm. Our things ought not to take long to dry, Cherry. And just hear the rain on the roof! 'Tis like a hundred cannon, I vow!"

"And how dark it is!" exclaimed Charity, in a wondering tone. "Why, 'tis just like night, now, Hitty, and"

Charity's voice died away as she turned her head to listen. "There be someone at the door, Hitty!" she whispered then.

Mehitable shook her head violently and ducked to the floor, motioning her sister to do likewise. They were just in time, for no sooner had they concealed themselves than the door through which they, themselves, had obtained admittance, opened and creaking boots stamped along the aisle off which their pew opened. The boots seemed to stop, to the girls' dismay, directly in front of their


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 pew. Then, as they knelt with bated breath, they heard the opposite pew door open and close.

"Well, Hawtree," said a cheerful voice, "this be saintly shelter from the storm, yet 'twill serve our purpose as well as any!"

Charity grasped Mehitable's arm. The voice was that of the spy, Simpson!

"Saintly shelter, indeed!" responded Hawtree surlily. "And because o' the storm—Gad, that be a close one!—it must do for us!"

There were sounds of wet garments being spread out to dry upon the wooden bench, then Simpson spoke briskly:

"And now to business, gentlemen!"

"Nay!" interrupted a third voice gruffly. "Let us first assure ourselves, young man, that we be the only occupants in here! The door was unlatched, ye mind!"

"An it make it any easier in your mind, Moody!" answered Hawtree scornfully.

"Back here beneath the bench, Cherry—quick!" whispered Mehitable, noiselessly, as footsteps scattering over the church indicated that a search had begun.

"No one here!" reported Simpson's voice from the front of the church after awhile.

"No one on this side!" came Moody's voice from the opposite side of the big room.

Clump! Clump! Clump! Charity's eyes di-


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 lated in silent horror as a heavy tread came down the aisle toward her pew. A pause. Hawtree was stopping to glance in the pew ahead. Clump! Clump! Another pause. Through the black storm shadows there came to the sisters an impression of a peering face, the vague gesture of an outstretched hand feeling along the bench above their heads, a heavy breath—then, clump! the footsteps moved on and the frightened girls clasped each other's hands in spasmodic relief.

"No one here!" they presently heard Hawtree announce sullenly, his search over, too. Followed sounds of the three men settling themselves.

A half hour passed slowly, tortuously. Mehitable's body grew cramped, so that all of her being seemed to dissolve into an aching, agonizing desire to move. When she became numbed, it was better. But she dared not move. Charity, smaller than her sister, was not so limited as to space, and therefore was not so uncomfortable as she; but even she was glad when, at the end of the half hour, the men rose noisily and left the church.

The two girls crawled out of their hiding place, when they had made sure the unwelcome visitors were not returning.

"What are ye going to do, Hitty?" asked Charity, as they stood groaningly trying to straighten their backs. Knowing Mehitable, the little sister had not the least doubt in the world that, having


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 acquired a vast amount of information concerning the enemy's plans, she would do something!

"I shall ride to warn our militia!" Mehitable's eyes flashed. "Ouch, my back! I vow 'tis broken. There be the signal gun at the Short Hills, Cherry—they call it Old Sow because it is placed on the Sow's Back—that ridge that can be seen both Morris Town way and Springfield and Elizabeth Town way! I shall ride to warn the countryside! Mayhap I will have a chance to help my poor country after so betraying her to Simpson—though Heaven knows I did not mean to! They expect to go right through our lines at Springfield, do they?—those hateful Skinner's 'Greens' and those despicable Hessians under General Knypehausen! Well, we shall see how farmers fight when they wish to avenge a New Jersey woman's murder! Mayhap poor Mistress Caldwell did not die in vain, after all!"


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EHITABLE was off through the murky, storm-threatened twilight. Shreds of lightning beyond the Mountain showed that thunder heads still existed there, that the storm had not yet passed on over Newark and Bergen Heights to its usual destination, the Hudson Valley.

She had left Charity at the Condit gate, had dug her slipper heels into Dulcie's sides, and now she was slowing down before the Briggs's house, deserted since the Tory, Elijah Briggs, had been sent to Staten Island by order of the government. The Briggs's farmhouse was at the junction of the Second Road, which followed the foot of the Mountain across the Orange Valley, and Fifth Road, which dwindled as it ascended steeply up the side of the Mountain into a mere narrow Indian trail. Mehitable debated the question briefly—should she ride straight over the hills to the Short Hills road or should she follow the more traveled road to Millburn and so to the Sow's Back? Presently, she shook her head.

"The longest way be the shortest," she mur-


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 mured into her horse's intelligent ears. "On, Dulcie!"

So they held to the way which, leading south and then west, would take them around the foot of Orange Mountain.

On and on they flew. Up the turn of the lane as it led to the ridge road on which was situated the Widow Ball's house. As she flashed past it, she looked at its lighted windows with a smile upon her face. She had very pleasant memories of the large family who had grown up within its walls—memories she had formed when a tiny girl taken a-visiting there by her mother to be petted and caressed by the larger boys and girls. Now, these same boys and girls were grown men and women, though Mistress Ball was more than proud of her three sons, John, thirty-three, Uzal, thirty-one, and David, her baby, twenty-three, who were fighting valiantly with other New Jersey men.

Galloping on, there came a flash of lightning, a low, threatening rumble of thunder. Glancing back nervously, Mehitable suddenly started. Was that someone following her on horseback there, just appearing over the edge of the ridge? Another glare of lightning blinded her, as she gazed, and when she looked back again, the figure had disappeared into the shadows, if it had existed at all, and pursuing hoof-beats, if there were any, were drowned in Dulcie's hoof-beats.


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 On and on. Past stretches of forest, rising not so abruptly now as the road led away a little from the mountain-foot. Past scattered farmhouses. Past more forest. On and on.

"No more hills, Dulcie!" Mehitable promised the old horse, lying along her neck and speaking encouragingly into the cocked ear. "Just a tiny short one at the very end o' your trip!"

But Dulcie was commencing to limp! Mehitable, glancing frantically over her shoulder, saw at that moment, too, when there came a convenient flash of lightning, that someone was following! She felt her heart turn to lead. Who could it be? She searched her mind, having dismissed Simpson and Hawtree and Moody as not being likely to travel in that direction. Who could it be? Dulcie's hoof-beats made it into an annoying rhythm—who—could—it—be? One by one she dismissed the names of Tory neighbors and confessed herself at last to be totally puzzled. But whoever it was, she told herself grimly, she would ride to the bitter end rather than surrender before Dulcie was down and out entirely!

"Tush!" she tried to reassure herself. "Art becoming silly!"

But glancing back an instant later, she saw, as the lightning came again, that the distance between the mysterious rider and herself was decreasing by reason of Dulcie's misfortune. It could only be


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 a matter of time before she would be overtaken. Mehitable uttered a little sob. Was she not to have her chance to help the country she had not meant to betray? she asked herself forlornly.

It was raining now. A great drop spattered upon her hand, another upon her bared head from which the sunbonnet had been discarded long ago. Then came a swift downpour, and the road turned to a sea of mud beneath Dulcie's feet, a sea both treacherous and dangerous in its bog holes.

It was not Dulcie who found it so, however. As she glanced back, with the green lightning flare, she saw the pursuer's horse go down, and at the next flash, the rider was up on his feet again, but not the beast.

"The animal hath broken his leg!" she murmured to Dulcie, who pricked her ears rebukingly. "Ah, I beg your pardon!" The girl patted her steed's neck whimsically. "I did forget it might be a friend o' yours, my dear!"

So, freed from the fear of pursuit, Mehitable galloped through the quiet village of Millburn. There, supper over long ago, bedtime candles were beginning to twinkle through house windows.

As suddenly then as it had commenced the rain stopped. To the north of the bridle path she was following through the forest Mehitable could see the end of the Mountain with its lookout and its cliffs, when the lightning would allow her and the