A Loyal Little Red-Coat by Ruth Ogden — Read

VACUATION DAY, with all its excitement, was soon followed by that day well nigh as eventful, when on the Fourth of December General Washington took final leave of his officers "in the great historic room" at Fraunces Tavern, a leavetaking that proved a very touching and trying ordeal both for him and for them. Starlight and Flutters, who had contrived to be in the forefront of the crowd that looked on, could have told you how plainly strong emotion was betrayed on the brave General's face, as he passed out from the tavern, and down to the barge that was waiting to convey him to Paulus Hook on his way to Congress.

But after that day, affairs settled down into much quieter channels than they had known for some time -- that is, at any rate as far as the people with whom we have most to do are concerned. The Van Vleets had asked Aunt Frances to make her home with them indefinitely, and though still faintly cherishing the hope that she might have her own home back again some day, she had accepted their invitation, and opened a little school among the farmers' children in the neighborhood. Starlight was one of her most promising pupils, and so his visits to Kings Bridge were of necessity less frequent than they used to be. In that matter, Cousin Harry had a great advantage over him, for having moved to New York in order to be near his office, what more natural, and, as Harry would have said, "what more delightful," than to spend all his evenings at the Bonifaces? And what a blessing those visits were to them, only they themselves could have told you. As soon as he arrived he would first go upstairs and have a talk with the Captain, ransacking his mind for everything that could by any possibility interest him; then when he had told the little or much that he had to tell, or saw that he was tiring him, down he would go to the sitting-room, have a romp with Bonny Kate, if she had managed to stay up past her bed-time, or possibly a game of some sort with Hazel and Flutters, but it generally happened that after a while there was no one left to talk to save Josephine, and of course you know better than to think that Harry minded that. Josephine had generally some bit of work in hand, and could not afford to simply laugh and chat the evening away, with her pretty hands lying idle in her lap, as perhaps is the case with your older sister, when some friend comes to call.