“Let me keep it, Hugh. It is a queer tangle. Just now we can do nothing, and later we shall see. There will be needed some wiser legal head than mine or yours, and what will come of it who can say? At all events, Mr. Arthur has it not, and in your father’s condition he himself will hardly be able to make a competent conveyance. Indeed, I think he will forget the whole business. I presume Master Wynne is not likely to return in a hurry.” In the beginning of April General Arnold married our beautiful Margaret Shippen, and took her to the new home, Mount Pleasant, above the shaded waters of the quiet Schuylkill. Tea-parties and punch-drinking followed, as was the custom. Mr. Arnold, as my aunt called him, after a fashion learned in London, and also common in the colonies, gave his bride Mount Pleasant as a dowry, and none knew--not even the fair Margaret--that it was hopelessly mortgaged. Hither came guests in scores for a week after the marriage to drink tea with madam, the men taking punch upstairs with the groom, while the women waited below, and had cakes and gossip, in which this winter was rich enough to satisfy those of all parties. It was a year of defeat, and again the weaker folk, like Joseph Warder and some much better known,--I mention no names,--were talking of terms, or, by their firesides with a jug of Hollands, were criticising our leader, and asking why he did not move. Meanwhile the army was as ill off as ever it had been since the camping at Valley Forge, while the air here in the city was full of vague rumours of defection and what not. I was of necessity caught in the vortex of gaiety which my chief loved and did much to keep up. He liked to see his aides at his table, and used them as a part of the excessive state we thought at this time most unseemly. I remember well an afternoon in April of this year, when, the spring being early, all manner of green things were peeping forth, while I walked to and fro in the hall at Mount Pleasant, that I might receive those who called and excuse the absence of the host. I wandered out, for as yet none came to call. The air was soft like summer, and, sweeter than birds overhead or the fragrant arbutus on the upland slopes, came Darthea in virgin white, and a great hat tied under her chin with long breadths of blue ribbon. My aunt walked with her from her coach, and close after them came a laughing throng of men and women, for the most part of the governor’s set. There was bad news from the South, which was by no means unwelcome to these people, if I might judge from their comments. My aunt walked with them in silent wrath, and after I had met them at the door, turned aside with me and bade me go with her on the lawn, where the grass was already green.