the Hale family, she must have seen that whatever
was true of Nathan Hale in the days when they
were boy and girl together, he, now a Yale graduate
and a man among men, first as teacher and then as
soldier, was even more worthy of her love than in
their early days. It is probable that they corresponded
more or less, though happily none of the
letters of either are preserved for the curious to
delight in. All we know is that in December, 1775,
a year after her husband's death, Nathan Hale
stopped in Coventry while absent from camp on
army business, and the broken engagement has
been said to have been then renewed, this time
without opposition.

Having been married and widowed, and having
lost her little son, Alice Adams Ripley was now free
to listen to the claims of the first love that had
entered her heart. What the few brief months
that remained to Nathan Hale must have meant to
Alice Ripley, believing in him and caring for him,
only the noblest women can comprehend.

In regard to the letters written by Nathan Hale
on the morning of his execution, one of these letters
is said to have been written to his mother. One or
two of his biographers have inferred that this must
be an error, and that it was written to his father or
to a brother. With the natural delicacy always so

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v?