t by her for hours, perfectly silent. Yesterday she came
into your room, where I was sitting, and she looked at me for
a long time--so strangely--and I asked her why, and she shook
her head. And after she had gone I arranged your linen and
sprinkled lavender among it.

"You see there is so little to tell you, except that in the
afternoon some Senecas and Tories shot at one of our distant
tenants, a poor man, one Christian Schell; and he beat them
off and killed eleven, which was very brave, and one of the
soldiers made a rude song about it, and they have been
singing it all night in their quarters. I heard them from
your room--where I sometimes sleep--the air being good there;
and this is what they sang:

"'A story, a story
Unto you I will tell,
Concerning a brave hero,
One Christian Schell.

"'Who was attacked by the savages.
And Tories, it is said;
But for this attack
Most freely they bled.

"'He fled unto his house
For to save his life.
Where he had left his arms
In care of his wife.

"'They advanced upon him
And began to fire,
But Christian with his blunderbuss
Soon made them retire.

"'He wounded Donald McDonald
And drew him in the door,
Who gave an account
Their strength was sixty-four.

"'Six there was wounded
And eleven there was killed
Of this said party,
Before they quit the field.'

"And I think there are a hundred other verses, which I will
spare you; not that I forget them, for the soldiers sang them
over and over, and I had nothing better to do than to lie
awake and listen.

"So that is all. I hear my messenger moving about below; I am
to drop this letter down to him, as all are asleep, and to
open the big door might wake them.

"Good-bye.

* * * * *

"It was not my rifleman, only the sentry. They keep double
watch since the news came about Schell. "Good-bye. I am
thinking of you.

"DOROTHY.

"Postscript.--Please make my compliments and adieux to Sir
George Covert.

"Postscript.--The rifleman is here; he is whistling like a
whippoorwill. I must say good-bye. I am mad to go with him.
Do not forget me!

"My memories are so keen, so pitilessly real, I can s