"Read you Master Clevering's letter?--As you will, Mistress Strudwick; you may perchance find more of interest in it than I," she answered with that sweet courtesy she showed ever to her elders. And so having enthroned Mistress Strudwick upon the wicker bench of the porch, while the others disposed themselves upon the steps and the grass of the terrace which sloped directly to the street, she unfolded her letter and cleared her throat pompously as is the manner of public speakers. "I pray you have patience with me, good ladies," she said, "if so I read but slowly. Master Clevering ever had trouble with his spelling; and as for the writing, 'tis as though a fly had half drowned itself in the inkhorn and then crawled upon the page." Then did she proceed to read them the letter from its greeting to its close, pausing now and then to laboriously spell out a word. There were accounts of the life at Valley Forge, of the drilling and the picket duty and the ceaseless watching of the enemy. Then there was an exultant description of the victory at far-off Stillwater, as it was given to him by a fellow-soldier who had been a participant. "Said I not the Continentals would win? Would I had been there to see! Five times was one cannon captured and recaptured. How glorious the fighting was; and think of the surrender! Well, well, it consoles me somewhat to think of that coming last surrender of that archest of all the Royalists. I shall bear a part in that, for it is to me the capitulation will be made--" "Why, dear me, is Master Clevering to be made commander-in-chief of the American forces, that his Majesty's troops should yield arms to him?" Joscelyn broke off to ask with assumed innocence. "I heard naught of his rapid promotion." "Come, come, Joscelyn, leave off sneering at Richard and read us the rest." She laughed as she turned the page. "Say to Mistress Strudwick that the fame of her gallant brother, Major William Shepperd, hath reached even this remote quarter, and his old friends glory in his prowess. Little Jimmy Nash has lost his wits and wants another pair-- ("A pair of wits! What can that mean? Oh, I ask your pardon, Mistress Nash; it is 'mits,' not 'wits.' Master Clevering hath so queer a handwriting.) "--and wants another pair; let his mother know, that she may knit them and send them by the first chance." There were other messages and news items which the girl read, and then came the signature. "There follows here a postscript which perchance some of you may help me to unravel," she added; and then, with the air of a town-crier announcing his errand, she proceeded:-- "To the girl of my heart say this, that I forget not I am fighting for her, and that I look upon every Redcoat my gun can bring down as one more obstacle removed from betwixt us. I think of her always."