ly sleeping
Mistress Schuyler, the sweet security of whose manifest goodness and
kindness she alternately hated and envied; and at last, unable to stand
it longer, slipped noiselessly from her bed, and stood very wretched
and disconsolate before the window that looked out upon the slope
toward the Whippany River. The moon on the new-fallen, frigid, and
untrodden snow shone brightly. Far to the left it glittered on the
bayonet of a sentry pacing beside the river-bank, and gave a sense of
security to the girl that perhaps strengthened another idea that had
grown up in her mind. Since she could not sleep, why should she not
ramble about until she could? She had been accustomed to roam about
the farm in all weathers and at all times and seasons. She recalled to
herself the night--a tempestuous one--when she had risen in serious
concern as to the lying-in of her favorite Alderney heifer, and how she
had saved the life of the calf, a weakling, dropped apparently from the
clouds in the tempest, as it lay beside the barn. With this in her
mind, she donned her dress again, and, with Mistress Schuyler's mantle
over her shoulders, noiselessly crept down the narrow staircase, passed
the sleeping servant on the settee, and, opening the rear door, in
another moment was inhaling the crisp air, and tripping down the crisp
snow of the hillside.

But Mistress Thankful had overlooked one difference between her own
farm and a military encampment. She had not proceeded a dozen yards
before a figure apparently started out of the ground beneath her, and,
levelling a bayoneted musket across her path, called, "Halt!"

The hot blood mounted to the girl's cheek at the first imperative
command she had ever received in her life: nevertheless she halted
unconsciously, and without a word confronted the challenger with her
old audacity.

"Who comes there?" reiterated the sentry, still keeping his bayonet
level with her breast.

"Thankful Blossom," she responded promptly.

The sentry brought his musket to a "present." "Pass, Thankful Blossom,
and God send it soon and the spring with it, and good-night," he said,
with a strong Milesian accent. And before the still-amazed girl could
comprehend the meaning of his abrupt challenge, or his equally abrupt
departure, he had resumed his monotonous pace in the moonlight.
Indeed, as she stood looking after him, the whole episode, the odd
unreality of the moonlit landscape, the novelty of her positi