rts. But he was in honour bound to tell
her of the irregularity of his birth. And in what manner would she
regard a possible husband with whose children she never could discuss
their father's parents? She was twenty-two, a small woman-of-the-world,
not a romantic young miss incapable of reason. And the Schuylers? The
proudest family in America! Would they take him on what he had made of
himself, on the promise of his future, or would their family pride prove
stronger than their common sense? He had moments of frantic doubt and
depression, but fortunately there was no time for protracted periods of
lover's misery. Washington demanded him constantly for consultation upon
the best possible method of putting animation into the Congress and
extracting money for the wretched troops. He frequently accompanied the
General, as at Valley Forge, in his visits to the encampment on the
mountain, where the emaciated tattered wretches were hutting with all
possible speed against the severity of another winter. The snow was
already on the ground, and every prospect of a repetition of the horrors
of Valley Forge. The mere sight of Washington put heart into them, and
Hamilton's lively sallies rarely failed to elicit a smile in return.

It so happened that for a fortnight the correspondence with Congress,
the States, the Generals, and the British, in regard to the exchange of
prisoners, was so heavy, the consultations with Washington so frequent,
that Hamilton saw nothing of Miss Schuyler, and had little time for the
indulgence of pangs. When he emerged, however, his mind was the freer to
seek a solution of the problem which had tormented him, and he quickly
found it. He determined to write the truth to Miss Schuyler, and so save
the embarrassment he had dreaded for both. To think was to act. He
related the facts of his birth and of his ancestry in the briefest
possible manner, adding a description of his mother which would leave no
question of the place she held in his esteem. He then stated, with the
emphasis of which he was master, that he distractedly awaited his
dismissal, or Miss Schuyler's permission to declare what he had so
awkwardly concealed.

He sent the letter by an orderly, and attacked his correspondence with a
desire to put gunpowder on his quill. But Miss Schuyler was a
tender-hearted creature and had no intention that he should suffer. She
scrawled him a hasty summons to come to her at once, and bade the
orderly ride as