In the Fall of 1777, we thought we might have news of Winwood, for in the Northern rebel army to which General Burgoyne then capitulated, there were not only many New York troops, but moreover several of the officers taken at Quebec, who had been exchanged when Philip had. But of him we heard nothing, and from him it was not likely that we should hear. Margaret never mentioned him now, and seemed to have forgotten that she possessed a husband. Her interest was mainly in the British officers still left in New York, and her impatience was for the return of the larger number that had gone to Philadelphia. To this impatience an end was put in the Summer of 1778, when the main army marched back to us across New Jersey, followed part way by the rebels, and fighting with them at Monmouth Court House. 'Twas upon this that the lines I have mentioned, of British outposts protecting New York, and rebel forces surrounding us on all sides but that of the sea, were established in their most complete shape; and that the reciprocal forays became most frequent. And now, too, the British occupation of New York assumed its greatest proportions. The kinds of festivity in which Margaret so brilliantly shone, lent to the town the continual gaiety in which she so keenly delighted. The loyalist families exerted themselves to protect the king's officers from dulness, and the king's officers, in their own endeavours to the same end, helped perforce to banish dulness from the lives of their entertainers. 'Twas a gay town, indeed, for some folk, despite the vast ugly blotches wrought upon its surface by two great fires since the war had come, and despite the scarcity of provisions and the other inconveniences of a virtual state of siege. Tom and I saw much of that gaiety, for indeed at that time our duties were not as active as we wished they might be, and they left us leisure enough to spend in the town. But we were pale candles to the European officers--the rattling, swearing, insolent English, the tall and haughty Scots, the courtly Hessians and Brunswickers. "What, sister, have we grown invisible, Bert and I?" said Tom to Margaret, as we met her in the hall one night, after we had returned from a ball in the Assembly Rooms. "Three times we bowed to you this evening, and got never a glance in return." "'Faith," says she, with a smile, "one can't see these green uniforms for the scarlet ones!" "Ay," he retorted, with less good-humour than she had shown, "the scarlet coats blind some people's eyes, I think, to other things than green uniforms." It was, I fancy, because Tom had from childhood adored her so much, that he now took her conduct so ill, and showed upon occasion a bitterness that he never manifested over any other subject. "What do you mean, you saucy boy?" cried she, turning red, and looking mighty handsome. "You might take a lesson or two in manners from some of the scarlet coats!"