At this time the Congress often sat with but a dozen members. It was no longer the dignified body of seventy-six. Officers came and went. Men like Robert Morris and Dr. Rush shook their heads. Clinton lay in New York, watched by Washington, and in the South there was disaster after disaster, while even our best men wearied of the war, and asked anxiously how it was to end. Recruiting in the face of such a state of things was slow indeed. I had little to do but wait on the general, read to my aunt, ride with her and Darthea, or shoot ducks with Jack when weather permitted; and so the long winter wore on. With Darthea I restrained my useless passion, and contented myself with knowing that we were day by day becoming closer friends. If Arthur wrote to her or not, I could not tell. She avoided mentioning him, and I asked no questions. I shall let Jack’s diary tell--at this time it was very full--what chanced in midwinter. Alas, my dear Jack! “It has,” he wrote, “been a season of foolish dissipation. While the army suffers for everything, these fools are dancing and gambling, and General A----- the worst of all, which seems a pity in so good a soldier. He is doing us a mighty harm. “To-day has been for me a sad one. I shall think ever of my folly with remorse. I set it down as a lesson to be read. We had a great sleighing-frolic to Cliveden. There were all the Tories, and few else--the general driving Peggy Shippen, and I Darthea. Mistress Wynne would have none of it. ‘We were no worse off under Howe,’ she says; ‘Mr. Arnold has no sense and no judgment.’ It is true, I fear. Mrs. Peniston, half froze, went along in our old sleigh. We drove up to the stone steps of Cliveden about seven at night--a fine moonlight, so that the stone vases on the roof, crowned with their carved pineapples, stood out against the sky. The windows were all aglow, and neither doors nor shutters were as yet fully repaired. “We had a warm welcome, and stood about the ample fires while the ladies went merrily upstairs to leave their cloaks. I looked about me curiously, for there were dozens of bullet-marks on the plaster and the woodwork. It had been a gallant defence, and cleverly contrived. Soon came down the stairs a bevy of laughing girls to look, with hushed voices, at the blood-stains on the floor and the dents the muskets had made. They did think to tease me by praising Colonel Musgrave, who had commanded the British; but I, not to be outdone, declared him the bravest man alive. Darthea smiled, but said nothing, and for that I loved her better than ever.