the once peaceful
city. Groups of men were lounging idly about, and confusion seemed to
predominate. But they soon left the city behind them, and rode along the
Schuylkill, where the wintry landscape, leafless trees, and denuded
cornfields met their glance, dreary now, but to be ruinous by and by.

Primrose had a pony of her own and rode beside her aunt, with her
brother as her guard, while Lieutenant Vane was her aunt's escort.
Primrose wore a blue cloth coat and skirt, trimmed with fur, and her
white beaver hat was tied under her chin. Many women used a thin, silken
sort of mask to protect their complexion from wind and dust, but Madam
Wetherill had discarded it and did not always insist upon Primrose
wearing one.

Many of the beautiful houses destroyed later on were standing now. A few
had been taken as outposts for the army, others looked lonely enough
closed for the season, as it had not been considered prudent to leave
even the farmer in charge, after the battle of Germantown.

"Primrose does credit to someone's training," Captain Nevitt remarked.
"Is it a long ride?"

"We are used to this fashion of getting about and hardly think of
fatigue. It would be a poor weakling who could not stand a few miles.
The roads are rough for the chaise."

How pretty she looked in her white and blue. She smiled at him. They had
been quite good friends since the night of the dance, though there had
been no opportunity of teasing each other.

But she was not thinking of his regard nor his pleasure just now. She
seemed to have changed mysteriously, to have grown out of careless
childhood, and taken a great deal of thought about the country. When
she remembered that General Howe had come with his army to subdue it and
that her brother was in the soldiery she shrank from him. How could she
love him? He had pleaded for her sweet mother's sake, and that touched
her inmost soul.

She had listened with frightened eyes and a breathless throbbing of the
heart to the account of the battle of Germantown, and her fears for her
beloved country often outran her hopes when she had a quiet time to
think. The servants had been forbidden to tell her the more awesome part
of it, only she knew General Washington had been beaten and forced to
retreat, and the British hailed it as a great victory.

The young lieutenant and the stately dame found many things to talk
about, as well-bred people often do, skirting over the thin places, for
by this