“I don’t,” returned he good-naturedly. “There was never much love lost between us, as she knows, though I am sorry that she hath been ill. Are you as busy as ever, Peggy?” “The dinner is ready, John,” spoke Mrs. Owen as Sukey came to the door with the announcement. “Thee must be hungry. Come now, and eat. And thee must make thy home with us while in the city. It would give us great pleasure.” “Thank you, madam. I will accept gladly, though it will be but for a day or two. There will be return despatches from Congress to General Greene. I must go back as soon as the gentlemen have finished with me. I wait upon them this afternoon.” “Then thee won’t be able to go with the girls to see the skating,” remarked the lady leading the way to the dining-room. “If they finish with me soon I will join them,” he answered. “My! how good this table looks! ’Tis not often that I sit down to a meal like this.” “I wonder how you poor soldiers can fight so well when you have so little to eat,” she said soberly. “’Tis in my mind often.” “Perhaps we fight the better for being hungry,” he returned lightly. “We have to get filled up on something, you know. Supplies are in truth hard to come by. Clothing as well as food. General Greene went before the legislatures of all the states he passed through on his way South to plead that men, clothing, food and equipment might be forthcoming for the campaign. There is woeful remissness somewhere. Why, some of our poor fellows haven’t even a shirt to their backs.” “And I have made twelve myself since I came back,” exclaimed Peggy proudly. “And mother as many more. Mistress Reed hath twenty-two hundred to send to the Pennsylvania line now.” “No wonder ‘Dandy Wayne’ is so proud of his men,” sighed the youth with a certain wistfulness in his voice. “The Pennsylvania line is the best dressed of any of the Continentals, and all because the women of the state look after their soldiers. Would that the other states would do as well!” “Lieutenant Drayton,” spoke Harriet suddenly. She had quite recovered her composure by this time. “Peggy did not tell you that I have made a shirt too.” “Not for the patriots?” he asked amazed. “Yes; for the rebels,” she replied. “Come!” he cried gayly. “You are improving. We will have a good patriot out of you yet.” “Perhaps,” she responded graciously, a roguish gleam coming into her eyes. “Are you in need of shirts, lieutenant?” Drayton’s face flushed, and then he laughed. “I am not as badly off as some of our poor fellows, Mistress Harriet, but they would not come amiss. Why?” “Because,” said she speaking deliberately, “if you will accept it, I should like to give you the shirt that I made.” “To give it to me?” he queried astonished. He had always known that Harriet disliked him, and therefore could not understand this sudden mark of favor. “To give it to me?” “Yes; to you. Will you promise to wear it if I give it to you?”