interior, and the broken battalions of the patriot army sought winter quarters on the banks of the Schuylkill, at Valley Forge. Gloomy indeed were the November twilights of 1777 to the eye and heart of the patriot, for there were no brilliant omens of a pleasant to-morrow. Not so was the bright sunset and radiant twilight of that November evening in 1848, when we left the ruins at Red Bank and sought a waterman to convey us back to League Island. There was no cloud in the heavens; an orange glow suffused the chambers of the west where the king of day had gone to his couch, and promises of a fair to-morrow were revealed in the clear sky. * Gordon, ii., 276. Botta, ii., 51. Washington's Letters. ** See plan on the preceding page. [[[Ancient Philadelphia.--The "Slate-roof House" and its Associations.]]] {300} CHAPTER XII. ```"New streets invade the country; and he strays, ```Lost in strange paths, still seeking, and in vain, ```For ancient landmarks, or the lonely lane ```Where oft he play'd at Crusoe, when a boy.= ```"All that was lovely then is gloomy now: ```Then, no strange paths perplex'd him, no new streets, ```Where draymen bawl, while rogues kick up a row, ```And fish-wives grin, while fopling fopling meets." `````William Elliott.= ````"But all are passing fast away; `````Those abstruse thinkers too-- ````Old churches, with their walls of gray, `````Must yield to something new. ````Be-Gothic'd things, all neat and white, `````Greet every where the traveler's sight." `````Elizabeth Oakes Smith.= [Illustration: 9310] ET us stroll through ancient Philadelphia this clear frosty morning [[November 28, 1848]] ing, and visit the few fossil remains of the primitive period that lie amid the elegant structures and "be-Gothic'd things" of the present, like trilobites in secondary limestone. We shall have little to do with the great town stretching away to the Schuylkill; it is near the banks of the Delaware that we must seek for the places hallowed by the remembrance of= ```"The deeds of our fathers in times that are gone; ```Their virtues, their prowess, the fields they have won; ```Their struggles for freedom, the toils they endured, ```The rights and the blessings for us they procured."=