Meanwhile the slow siege of Boston dragged on, and people began to say that the war would be begun and ended in a contest between General Howe and General Washington as to which one could wait the more patiently. News leaked out that supplies were becoming woefully few in the city, now that Washington had drawn his lines more firmly and no more bands of marauding redcoats had been able to break through. As the cold weather came on, the activity of the busy housewives was redoubled in the effort to keep well supplied the shivering soldiers of the Continental Army. Clotilde stood at her spinning-wheel, or sat all day at the loom that had been left in Samuel Skerry’s workshop ever since the time of the bold Puritan weaver who had built the house. Here she laboured from dawn to dark, while Stephen, when he was not writing in his own tiny room, would sit near her in the big armchair, sometimes reading to her to make the toilsome hours pass more quickly. He himself was very busy in these days, however, for many a messenger clattered up to the door, and many important documents went in and out of the little house or were locked away in the cupboard where Skerry had hidden his gold. Stephen had had the little windows protected with iron crossbars and heavy locks put upon both the doors, so that no pilfering fingers should break in to steal the state secrets of the new country. There were many important meetings in the room upstairs, while Clotilde sat alone below, whirring her busy wheel, looking out through the little barred windows at the falling snow, and dreaming of Master Simon’s garden when it was green and fair. Now and then a scribbled letter from Miles would reach her, but as the boy was sparing of written words, he gave her little news of himself. The first real tidings of him she received when David Thurston brought a letter for Stephen and stayed to consume, with great delight, one of Mother Jeanne’s hot mutton pies. “You can tell Master Sheffield when he comes in,” he said, for Stephen was out and did not return while the man was there, “that David Thurston has taken his advice and is doing his own part as a fighting man instead of sitting by the fire telling of what he would do were he King George. It is sometimes a weary and a hungry task, this siege of Boston, but all of the Hopewell lads are doing their share bravely. Our young Miles Atherton is a Captain now: heard you of the deed he did just before Christmas?” “No,” exclaimed Clotilde. “What was it?” “He is, indeed, a wonder of daring,” Thurston answered, “for he ventured into Boston in a huckster’s garb and brought forth his cousin, Betsey Anne Temple, and her daughter. Lone women they were, the older one ill, and both suffering much from the hardships of the siege. Miles has leave to visit Hopewell soon, so he will perhaps tell you the tale of his adventure himself, but, being so modest, he will not let you see how bold a stroke it was.”