About ten o’clock
-- Thomas Moore . It was a fine winter day . There had been a week of murky skies and dripping boughs ; a week of rain , and mud , and slush ; a week of such disagreeable weather that when the citizens of Philadelphia awoke , on this twenty-first day of February , 1781 , to find the sun shining in a sky of almost cloudless blue and the air keen and invigorating , they rejoiced , and went about their daily tasks thrilled anew with the pleasure of living . About ten o'clock on the morning of this sunlit winter day a young girl was slowly wending her way up Chestnut Street . At every few steps she was obliged to pause to lift into place a huge bundle she was carrying -- a bundle so large that she could just reach her arms about it , and clasp her hands together in the comfortable depths of a great muff . A ripple of laughter rose to her lips as , in spite of her efforts , the bundle at length slipped through her arms and fell with a soft thud upon the frozen ground . `` It 's lucky for thee , Peggy , '' she cried addressing herself merrily , `` that ’t is not yesterday , else thee would have a washing on thy hands .