e trips up the steps, briskly walked five or six steps, then stopped
and took a general survey of us all.

"'Where have you been, Mr. Tilly?' asked one officer. (We girls were
silent.)

"'I really imagined,' said Stoddard, 'that you were gone for your
pistols. I follow'd you to prevent danger,' an excessive laugh at each
question, which it was impossible to restrain.

"'Pray, where are your pistols, Tilly?'

"He broke his silence by the following expression, 'You may all go to
the devil!'" In recording this, Sally somewhat shocked says, "I never
heard him utter an indecent expression before."

"At last his good nature gained a complete ascendance over his anger,
and he joined heartily in the laugh. Stoddard caught hold of his coat.
'Come, look at what you ran from,' he exclaimed, and dragged him to the
door.

"Tilly gave it a look, said it was very natural, and by the singularity
of his expression gave fresh cause for diversion. We all retired,--for
to rest our faces,--if I may say so.

"Well, certainly these military folk will laugh all night. Such
screaming I never did hear. Adieu to-night."

Such incidents as that did good service in giving a touch of humour to
the soldiers' duller duties when in camp, and the vivid picture of Tilly
and the grenadier comes down to us through the years as a refreshing
incident of Revolutionary days.

On the next day Sally writes, "I am afraid they will yet carry the joke
too far. Tilly certainly possesses an uncommon share of good nature or
he could not tolerate these frequent teasings." Then she adds what is
most important of all,--

"Ah, Deborah, the Major is going to leave us entirely, just going. I
will see him first."

And on the next day, "He has gone. I saw him pass the bridge. The woods
hindered us from following him farther. I seem to fancy he will return
in the evening."

But he never did, and it is left to our imagining how much of her heart
the gallant young officer took away with him. Whether much or little,
there was no evidence of her loss of spirits, and other admirers came
and went, in quick succession and apparently entirely engaged her
attention.

On the 20th of December, she writes, "General Washington's army have
gone into winter quarters at Valley Forge.

"We shall not see so many of the military now. We shall be very intimate
with solitude. I am afraid stupidity will be a frequent guest," and
again, "A dull round of the same thing. I shall han