My aunt said it was sweet and thoughtful of Darthea, and we had a fine laugh over the burglary of that bad man, McLane. The woman went back with two notes stitched into the lining of her gown; one was from, my aunt, and one I wrote; and to this day Darthea alone knows what it said. God bless her! It was March 20 of ‘78 before I felt myself fully able to set out for camp. I had run no great risk. The country had been ravaged till it was hard to find a pig or a cow. Farmers were on small rations, and the foragers had quit looking for what did not exist. One dull morning I had the mare saddled, and got ready to leave. It was of a Friday I went away; my aunt as unwilling to have me set out as she had been eager to have me go the day before. My Quaker training left me clear of all such nonsense, and, kissing the dear lady, I left her in tears by the roadside. XIX It is a good eighteen-mile ride to Valley Forge over the crooked Perkiomen road, which, was none the better for the breaking up of the frost. I rode along with a light heart, but I was watchful, being so used to disastrous adventures. Happily, I met with no difficulties. A few miles from the bridge General Washington had built, I fell in with a party of horse. The officer in command seemed at first suspicious, but at last sent me on with two troopers. On the last Sunday of the month Friends were persistently in the habit of flocking into the city to General Meeting. They were not unwelcome, for they were apt to carry news of us, and neither we nor the enemy regarded them as neutrals. Our Commander-in-chief, in an order of this day, declared “that the plans settled at these meetings are of the most pernicious tendency,” and on this account directed General Lacy “that the parties of light horse be so disposed as to fall in with these people.”