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and to a few students of local history,—was born in Philadelphia in 1735. She was the daughter of wealthy Friends, and her education, liberal for those days, would not be deemed much amiss even in our own. It included a fair knowledge of French and a very admirable familiarity with English. She read books that were worth the reading, and she wrote with ease, conciseness, and subdued humour. Her diary, begun in 1758, was continued without interruption for forty-nine years. It is valuable, not only as a human document, and as a clear, graphic, unemotional narrative of the most troubled and triumphant period in our country's history, but because it contains a careful record of events which—of the utmost importance to the local historian—may be searched for in vain elsewhere. The entries are for the most part brief, and to this brevity, no doubt, we owe the persevering character of the work. It is the enthusiasm with which the young diarist usually sets about her task that threatens its premature collapse. She begins by being unduly confidential, and ends by having nothing to confide.