The Virginia women entered with enthusiasm into all schemes for sending help to their "distressed fellow-subjects in Boston," and applauded Colonel Washington when he declared that "he was ready to raise one thousand men, subsist them at his own expense and march at their head to Massachusetts." The colonial dames packed away in lavender-scented chests all their imported finery, their "quilts" and brocades, and clothed themselves in homespun or in mourning, destroying or sealing up their precious stock of tea, and regarding with unfriendly eyes a certain dame who continued to indulge in the proscribed luxury. It seems hard, poor lady, that she should come down in history as the only one who thus transgressed, "who continued to sip her tea in her closet after it was banished from every table," and that even her name and lineage should be given by an irreverent historian! This was no other than Kate Spotswood, she of the fawn and blue satin gown and the silver hair, now Mrs. Bernard Moore! Even the master of "Nomini Hall" proscribed the tea long before he ceased, for he _did_ cease at last, to toast "his Gracious Majesty, the King." "Something," says our old friend, the tutor, "in our palace this Evening very merry happened. Mrs. Carter made a dish of Tea! At Coffee she sent me a dish--I and the Colonel both ignorant. He smelt, sipt, look'd! At last with great gravity he asks, '_What's this?_' 'Do you ask, Sir?' 'Poh!' and out he throws it, _splash!_ a sacrifice to Vulcan." It seems the tea was restored to favor, at least in the army, only three years later. The colonists were then expressing themselves in sterner language! An island was found somewhere near headquarters in June, 1778. Here the officers invited their friends in the afternoon to drink tea, and because the island was so beautiful and enchanting they honored it with the name of "Paphos." There "Lady Stirling, Lady Kilty, and Miss Brown, met his Excellency's lady, an agreeable, well-disposed, excellent woman. The prospect of an alliance in Europe had cheered every heart, and cheerfulness enlightened every countenance." Was it the "alliance" or the dearly loved beverage of which they had been so long deprived? Thenceforward and until to-day the afternoon tea has been an institution, linked with the history of our country. It came back on the island of Paphos, and it came to stay! We hear of it once again in the annals of the Revolution. The Marquis de Chastellux tells us of another afternoon tea! "I left Mr. Samuel Adams with regret, and terminated my day by a visit to Colonel Bland. He is a tall, handsome man who has been a good soldier, but at present serves his country and serves it well in Congress. I was invited to drink tea, that is, attend a sort of Assembly: pretty much like the _conversazioni_ of Italy; for tea here is the substitute for the _rinfresca_. Mr. Arthur Lee, M. de La Fayette, M. de Noualles, M. de Dames, etc: were of the party." In