CHAPTER III
RUTH VISITS GENERAL HOWE
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 supper, but began to spread the cloth herself.
"I will do that, Aunt Deborah. You know I always do," Ruth said, laying down the parts for the dolls' chair, and coming toward the table.
"I will do it. Thou mayst go to thy room, Ruth; I will call thee when supper is ready," Aunt Deborah replied, without a glance at the little girl.
Ruth felt her face flush uncomfortably as she suddenly recalled the way in which she had spoken to Aunt Deborah after her aunt had led her away from the porch where the English soldiers were sitting, and where Ruth was sure Hero was hidden. She went up the stairs very slowly to her own chamber, a small room opening from the large front room where Aunt Deborah slept. She sat down near the window, feeling not only ashamed but very unhappy.
"If my mother were only here I shouldn't be sent off up-stairs. I don't like Aunt Deborah," she exclaimed, and looked up to see her aunt standing in the doorway.
For a moment the two looked at each other, and Ruth could see that Aunt Deborah was trying very hard to keep back the tears. Then the door closed, very softly, and Ruth was again alone.
"Oh, dear," she whispered, "and I promised my mother to do everything I could to help Aunt Deborah, and now she heard me say that I don't like her," and Ruth leaned her head against the arm of the big chair in which she had curled up and began to cry, quite sure that no little girl in all Philadelphia had as much reason for unhappiness as herself.