ly, then the absurdity of the
situation overcame him, and he laughed. Once more he searched his brain
for the countersign, which he remembered having given to little Ford
just after dinner. Mrs. Ford and her son retained two rooms in the
house, and Hamilton frequently gave the youngster the word, that he
might play in the village after dark. Suddenly he saw him approaching.
He darted down the road, secured the password, and returned in triumph
to the sentry.

"Sir," exclaimed the soldier, in dismay, "is this quite regular? Will
you give me your word, sir, that it is all right?"

"I vow that no harm shall come to you," said Hamilton. "Shoulder your
musket." And there the incident ended, so far as the soldier was
concerned, but young Ford carried the story to Headquarters, and it was
long before Hamilton heard the last of it.

There was no sleep in him that night. He went to his office and laboured
for hours over a verse which should adequately express the love
consuming him, and then he awoke Laurens and talked into that
sympathetic ear until it was time to break the ice and freshen himself
for work.

His work that day was of a vastly different character from the
impassioned trifle of the night before. He obtained exemption from other
duty, and ordered luncheon and dinner brought to his office. One of the
most remarkable examples of Hamilton's mature genius at this age of
twenty-three is his long and elaborate letter to Robert Morris on the
financial condition of the country, written during the earliest period
of his love for Elizabeth Schuyler. As passionate and impatient as he
was tender, alive in every part of his nature to the joy of a real
affection and to the prospect of a lasting happiness, he yet was able
for twelve hours at a time to shut his impending bride in the remotest
cupboard of his mind, nor heed her sighs. But there was an older love
than Elizabeth Schuyler: a ragged poverty-stricken creature by this,
cowering before dangers within and without, raving mad at times,
imbecile at others, filling her shattered body with patent nostrums, yet
throughout her long course of futilities and absurdities making a
desperate attempt to shade the battered lamp of liberty from the fatal
draught. Her name was the United States of America, and never was there
a more satiric misnomer. If the States chose to obey the requisitions of
the Congress, they obeyed them; but as a rule they did not. There was no
power in the