This was easy enough to say, but nearly two months went by before I was judged able to travel. We indeed did not make a start until after General Wooster arrived with more troops, and assumed command. Our return was accomplished in the company of the express he sent back with news of his arrival, and his report of the state of affairs in front of Quebec. From our own knowledge this was very bad, what with the mutinous character of many of the men, the total absence of subordination, and the bitter jealousies which existed among the rival officers. Even above the joy of turning our faces once more toward home, there rose in both of us a sense of relief at cutting loose from an expedition which had done no good, and that, too, at such a sad cost of suffering and bloodshed. It was impossible to have any pride whatever in the adventure, and we had small disposition to look people in the face, or talk with them of the siege and attack. To do them justice, the residents of the sparsely settled districts through which we slowly passed were civil enough. But we felt that we were returning like detected impostors, and we had no heart for their courtesies. Albany was reached at last, and there the news that the British had evacuated Boston put us in better spirits. The spring was backward, but it was April by the calendar if not by the tree-buds and gardens, and busy preparations for the season's campaign were going forward. General Schuyler took me into his own house, and insisted upon my having a full fortnight's rest, telling me that I needed all my strength for the work he had in mind for me. The repose was in truth grateful, after the long and difficult journey I had performed in my enfeebled condition; and what with books and pictures, and the journals of events that had transpired during my long absence, and the calls of friends, and the careful kindness of the General and his good wife, I ought to have felt myself indeed happy. But in some senses it was to me the most vexatious fortnight of the whole spring, for no hour of it all passed in which I was not devoured with anxiety to be among my own people again. The General was so pre-occupied and burdened with the stress of public and martial business, always in his case carried on for the most part under the embarrassment of recurring illness, that I shrank from questioning him, and the fear haunted me that it was his intention to send me away again without a visit to my old home. It is true that I might have pleaded an invalid's privileges, but I was really well enough to work with prudence, and I could not offer to shirk duty at such a time. But in his own good time the General relieved my mind and made me ashamed that I had ever doubted his considerateness. After breakfast one morning--it was the first, I remember, upon which I wore the new uniform with which I had been forced to replace the rags brought from Quebec--he called me to him in his library, and unfolded to me his plans: