As time lessened her fright, her necessities grew more pressing, and finally became so desperate, that, braving everything, she went boldly to headquarters, and asked for Lord Cornwallis.

She was referred by the sentry at the stoop to a room on the ground floor, her entrance being accompanied by the man shouting down the hallway:  “Here ’s wan more av thim townsfolks, sir.”  Entering, Janice discovered two men seated at a table, each with a little pile of money at his elbow, passing the time with cards.

“Well,” growled the one with his back to the door, “I suppose ’t is the usual tale:  No bread, no meat, no firewood; sick wife, sick baby, sick mother, sick anything that can be whined about.  Body o’ me, must we not merely die by bullets or starvation, but suffer a thousand deaths meantime with endless whimpering!

“Slowly, slowly, Mobray,” advised he who faced Janice.  “This is no nasal-voiced and putty-faced cowardly old Quaker.  ’T is a damned pretty maid, with eyes and a waist and an ankle fit to be a toast.  Ay, and she can mantle divinely, when she’s admired!”

“Ye don’t foist that take-in on me, John Andre!  I score six to my suit, and a quint is twenty-one, and a card played is twenty-two.—­Well, graycoat, say your say, and don’t stand behind me as a kill-joy.”

“I wish to see Lord Cornwallis, Sir Frederick,” faltered Janice, nerved only by thought of her mother, and ready to sink through the floor in her mortification.

At the sound of a woman’s voice the officer turned his head sharply, and with the first glance he was on his feet.  “Miss Meredith,” he cried, “a thousand pardons!  Who ’d have thought to find you here?  How can I serve you?”

“I wish to see Lord Cornwallis,” repeated Janice.

“’T is evident you pay little heed to what has been occurring,” replied Mobray, as he placed a chair for her.  “We thought we had all the spirit beat out of Mr. Washington’s pack o’ ragamuffins; but, egad, day before yesterday, quite contrary to all the rules of polite warfare, and in a most un-gentlemanly manner, they set upon us as we lay encamped at Germantown, and wellnigh gave us a drubbing.  Lord Cornwallis went to Sir William’s assistance, running his grenadiers at double quick the whole distance, and he has not yet returned.”

“We deemed rebellion well under our heel when we gained possession of its capital,” chimed in Captain Andre; “but Mr. Washington seems in truth to make a fourth with ’a dog, a woman, and a chestnut-tree, the more they are beat the better they be.’  Our very successes are teaching his army how to fight, and I fear me the day will come when we shall have thrashed them into a victory.”

“But all this is not helping Miss Meredith,” spoke up Mobray.  “Lord Cornwallis being beyond reach, can I not be of aid?”

In a few words the girl poured out the tale of her mother’s sickness, and then with less glibness, and with reddened cheeks, of her moneyless and foodless condition.