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122 that a box standing in the parlor which she claimed contained her private belongings, should be unmolested. The gallant young British officer, flattered by her appeal, stationed a guard over it, while the library was given over to the soldiers for sacking. They forthwith filled their foraging bags with worthless papers and departed, little suspecting that the box which had been so sedulously guarded contained all the Governor's correspondence with Congress, with the commander-in-chief and the state officers, and that the strategy of Susan Livingston had thus preserved what would have proved a most valuable prize to the plunderers.

Again, when New Jersey was once more invaded by the British, and all the neighboring villages were seen in flames, the Governor's house, the historic "Liberty Hall" in Elizabethtown, was left untouched, and its inmates, the women of the family, the Governor being absent, were treated with the greatest courtesy. The explanation lies in the romantic fact that just as the soldiers were advancing upon the house, one of the British officers received a rose from Miss Susan Livingston as a memento of a promise of protection he had made the fascinating young woman at the time when hostilities merely hung fire.

It was a younger sister of Miss Livingston who figures in the national tapestry as the recipient of the favor of General Washington, as expressed in the following very human note written amid the hardships of that most desolate of all American camps in the Revolution.

"General Washington having been informed lately of the honor done him by Miss Kitty Livingston in wishing for a lock of his hair, takes the liberty of inclosing one, accompanied by his most respectful compliments.

"Camp Valley Forge, March 18th, 1778."

All the letters of Governor Livingston to his daughters