your mother if you may
come for a visit, and then you'll go home at night. Some time you
can tell her all about it," concluded Esther as she noticed Faith's
serious and doubtful expression.

"And what will you do? Don't you mean to go with me?" asked Faith.

"Oh, yes! I'll tell my mother I am going to spend the day with you.
Then we'll start off in good season, and we'll get home before our
mothers miss us," said Esther.

"Faith! Faith!" and Mrs. Carew's voice sounded through the clear air.

"I must run back now. I'll write the letter to-night and be over near
your house as early as I can in the morning," said Faith.

"Hide behind the big pine," said Esther, and the two friends, greatly
excited over their project, separated and ran toward their respective
homes.

It was not easy for Faith to write the letter, for she would have to
ask her mother for the quill pen, and the bottle of ink, made from the
juice of the pokeberry. But in the early evening, while her mother was
busy, Faith secured the quill and ink and a sheet of the treasured
paper and wrote her letter:

"Dear Mr. Colonel Ethan Allen," she wrote. "Will you please send
the English soldiers away from Fort Ticonderoga? Nathan Beaman,
who lives at Shoreham, will show you how to get in. Please send
them soon, or more will come.

"Respectfully your friend,

"FAITH CAREW."

She had time to fold and seal the letter with the big stick of red
wax, softening the wax before the sitting-room fire. A moment later
and her mother came in, saying she had best go to bed and get a good
night's rest.

"May I spend to-morrow, all day, with Esther?" asked Faith, as her
mother went up-stairs with her, and feeling her face flush with the
consciousness of not telling her mother all the truth.

"Your very first day at home, dear child! Why, I should be running
over to Mrs. Eldridge's every hour to make sure that you were really
within reach," responded her mother.

"Oh, mother, you wouldn't!" said Faith, so earnestly that Mrs. Carew
smiled reassuringly and said:

"Well, perhaps not every hour. But if you want to spend the day with
Esther you may. 'Tis not as if you were going back to Aunt Prissy in a
week."

"And you won't come to Mrs. Eldridge's at all, will you, mother dear?"
pleaded Faith. "I'll be safe, and I'll come home early."

"You shall do as you like, dear child. I know you will do nothing but
what will pleas