A SWORD AND A HORSE PISTOL We hear much about the "days that tried men's souls"; but what about the souls of women in those same days?
Sitting in the liberal geniality of the nineteenth century's sunset glow, we insist upon having our grumble at the times and the manners of our generation; but if we had to exchange places, periods and experiences with the people who lived in America through the last quarter of the eighteenth century, there would be good ground for despairing ululations.

And if our men could not bear it, if it would try their souls too poignantly, let us imagine the effect upon our women.

No, let us not imagine it; but rather let us give full credit to the heroic souls of the mothers and the maidens who did actually bear up in the center of that terrible struggle and unflinchingly help win for us not only freedom, but the vast empire which at this moment is at once the master of the world and the model toward which all the nations of the earth are slowly but surely tending.
If Alice was an extraordinary girl, she was not aware of it; nor had she ever understood that her life was being shaped by extraordinary conditions.

Of course it could not but be plain to her that she knew more and felt more than the girls of her narrow acquaintance; that her accomplishments were greater; that she nursed splendid dreams of which they could have no proper comprehension, but until now she had never even dimly realized that she was probably capable of being something more than a mere creole lass, the foster daughter of Gaspard Roussillon, trader in pelts and furs.

Even her most romantic visions had never taken the form of personal desire, or ambition in its most nebulous stage; they had simply pleased her fresh and natural fancy and served to gild the hardness and crudeness of her life,--that was all.
Her experiences had been almost too terrible for belief, viewed at our distance from them; she had passed through scenes of incredible horror and suffering, but her nature had not been chilled, stunted or hardened.