A Little Maid of Old Philadelphia

For a few moments she lay quite still, looking wonderingly about the room. It seemed a "shining" room to Ruth, with its whitewashed walls, and its smooth polished floor, and onl...

"If thee please, sir, there has been a mistake made," said Aunt Deborah, and proceeded to tell the story of the birthday entertainment that the children had given for Mrs. Merrill.

Although Ruth was up in good season the next morning, she had only started the kitchen fire when Mrs. Merrill and Gilbert appeared at the kitchen door with a basket containing b...

The days now passed very quickly for Ruth and her friends. Every day Betty Hastings, Winifred, Ruth and Gilbert were in the Merrill's' garden or stable at work on the costumes f...

"I do not blame you, my dear, for accepting Betty's invitation, but I am surprised that Mrs. Hastings should permit an enemy of America's rights to become a friend, as it is evi...

"That is Mother calling," she exclaimed aloud, springing to her feet, and resting one hand against the smooth trunk of the pine tree. For a moment she was too surprised and slee...

"I wish we had brought Hero," thought Ruth regretfully as she hurried down the shadowy road, "then he could have come with me for company." For at the last moment before leaving...

The girls' laughter ceased, and they looked at Ruth a little questioningly as if expecting that she would explain. But it was Betty who, slipping her arm around Winifred, said p...

"Where do you suppose Hero can be, Aunt Deborah? He isn't anywhere about the house, or in the shed or the garden," and Ruth Pernell's voice sounded as if she could hardly keep b...

Ruth was up in good season the next morning, and Aunt Deborah was quite willing for her little niece to take Hero for a morning call on Winifred; and it was not yet nine o'clock...

The scarlet coat, after being carefully brushed and pressed, was returned to its place in the closet; and its owner never knew or imagined the part it had taken in Gilbert's pla...

Aunt Deborah was unusually quiet in her manner toward her little niece when Ruth came home with the cardboard ready to be covered. She did not ask Ruth to set the table for supp...

When Gilbert took the pan of candy-molds from the open window of Mrs. Pennell's kitchen, and, reaching in captured the heart-shaped box from the table, his only intention was to...

Gilbert and Winifred often talked to Ruth of their soldier brother, Vinal; and she never tired of hearing the story of a midnight visit he had made during the previous winter.

The girls had exchanged their wreaths of flowers as they sat down to luncheon, all excepting Ruth and Annette, who wore the ones they had made themselves, and they now made a ve...

Aunt Deborah did not linger to talk with her little niece, for it was a part of her belief that idle talk was unwise. The door had hardly closed behind her when Winifred's head...

Ruth shook up her pillows, turned back the blankets of her bed, and then went to the window and leaned out. There were two robins now on the top branch of the hawthorn, and for...

Two days passed and there was no tidings of the missing dog; and even Aunt Deborah began to fear that they should never see him again. It was very difficult for Ruth to attend t...

"Come, Ruth, Mistress Hastings is waiting for thy fine velvet coat," and Ruth looked up to see Aunt Deborah smiling down upon her; and in a moment the little girl was clinging t...

Years after, when Ruth was really "grown up," she often recalled the wonderful night when she sat at General Howe's dinner-table. For Major André had lifted her to a seat beside...

Lafayette had received the startling news and acted upon it without a question. He marched his men rapidly toward Matson's Ford, on the lower road, and when the British generals...

Ruth slept late the next morning, and when she first awoke it was with the puzzled feeling of waking from a bad dream. Then slowly she remembered the happenings of the previous...