he was prepared to receive them. Lydia returned home with her flour,
secretly watched the movements of the British, and saw them depart. Her
anxiety during their absence was excessive, nor was it lessened when, on
their return, the adjutant-general, summoning her to his apartment and
locking the door with an air of mystery, demanded 'Whether any of the
family were up on the night that he had received company at her house?'
She told him, that, without an exception, they had all retired at eight
o'clock. 'You, I know, Lydia, were asleep, for I knocked at your door
three times before you heard me, yet, although I am at a loss to
conceive who gave the information of our intended attack to General
Washington, it is certain we were betrayed; for, on arriving near his
encampment, we found his cannon mounted, his troops under arms, and at
every point so perfectly prepared to receive us, that we were compelled,
like fools, to make a retrograde movement, without inflicting on our
enemy any manner of injury whatever.'"

"Ha! ha! a neat stratagem, and a patriotic woman," exclaimed young
Harmar.

"Talking of the services of the women during the war," said Higgins,
"reminds me of Molly Macauly, or Sergeant Macauly, as we knew her while
in the army. She was a Pennsylvanian, and was so enthusiastic in her
patriotism, that she donned a man's dress, and joined the army, when she
became a sergeant, and fought bravely in several battles and skirmishes.
Nobody suspected that she was not what she seemed to be; for she was
tall, stout, and rough-looking, and associated with men very freely.
Molly had a custom of swinging her sabre over her head, and hurraing for
Mad Anthony, as she called General Wayne. She was wounded at Brandywine,
and, her sex being discovered, returned home."