rve and revere. The motive is truly important; and when I
divulge it my sole ambition and delight shall be to make an expiatory
sacrifice for my transgression.

"I am in a large but well regulated family. My employment is agreeable,
although it is somewhat different and more intense than it was at home.
But I apprehend it is equally as advantageous. My superintendents are
indulgent; but to a punctilio they demand a due observance of decorum
and propriety of conduct. By this you must know I have become mistress
of many useful lessons, though I have many more to learn. Be not too
much troubled, therefore, about my present or future engagements; as I
will endeavour to make that prudence and virtue my model, for which, I
own, I am much indebted to those who took the charge of my youth.

"My place of residence and the adjoining country are beyond description
delightsome.... Indeed, were it not for the ravages of war, of which I
have seen more here than in Massachusetts, this part of our great
continent would become a paradisiacal elysium. Heaven condescend that a
speedy peace may constitute us a happy and independent nation: when the
husband shall again be restored to his amiable consort, to wipe her
sorrowing tear, the son to the embraces of his mourning parents, and the
lover to the tender, disconsolate, and half-distracted object of his
love.

"Your affectionate

"Daughter."

Unfortunately this letter, which had to be entrusted to a stranger, was
intercepted. But Deborah did not know this, and her mind at rest, she
pursued cheerfully the course she had marked out for herself.

The fatigue and heat of the march oppressed the girl soldier more than
did battle or the fear of death. Yet at White Plains, her first
experience of actual warfare, her left-hand man was shot dead in the
second fire, and she herself received two shots through her coat and one
through her cap. In the terrible bayonet charge at this same battle, in
which she was a participant, the sight of the bloodshed proved almost
too much for her strength.

At Yorktown she was ordered to work on a battery, which she did right
faithfully. Among her comrades, Deborah's young and jaunty appearance
won for her the sobriquet "blooming boy." She was a great favourite in
the ranks. She shirked nothing, and did duty sometimes as a common
soldier and sometimes as a sergeant