Passing up this avenue, the company entered a lawn, four hundred yards on every side, where all was prepared for the exhibition of a tournament according to the laws of ancient chivalry. Here were two pavilions, with rows of benches rising one above the other; on the front row of each were placed seven of the principal young ladies of the county, arrayed in white Poland dresses of Mantua with long sleeves, a gauze turban spangled, and sashes round the waist. Seven of them wore pink sashes with silver spangles, and the others white with gold spangles. All bore in their turbans favors destined for their respective knights. Those who wore pink and white were called the Ladies of the Blended Rose, and were Miss Auchmuty, Miss Peggy Chew, Miss Janet Craig, Miss Nancy Redman, Miss Nancy White, Miss Williamina Bond, and Miss Shippen. Lord Cathcart, who led the Knights of the Blended Rose in Miss Auchmuty’s honor, appeared upon a superb charger. Two young black slaves, with sashes of blue and white silk, wearing large silver clasps round their necks and arms, their breasts and shoulders bare, held his stirrups. On his right hand walked Captain Hazard, and on his left Captain Brownlow, his two esquires, the one bearing his lance, the other his shield. His device was Cupid riding on a Lion; the motto, “Surmounted by Love.” The Ladies of the Burning Mountain, whose dress was white and gold, and whose chief was Captain Watson, superbly mounted, and arrayed in a magnificent suit of black and orange silk, were Miss Rebecca Franks, in whose honor Captain Watson appeared, with the motto “Love and Glory,” Miss Sarah Shippen, Miss P. Shippen, Miss Becky Bond, Miss Becky Redman, Miss Sally Chew, and Miss Williamina Smith. In all descriptions of the Meschianza related by eye-witnesses, the Shippen sisters are spoken of as having taken a prominent part in the entertainment. Only within a few years has a letter from a member of the family controverted this statement, in the following terms: “The young ladies [the daughters of Chief Justice Edward Shippen] had been invited and had arranged to go [to the Meschianza]; their names were upon the programmes, and their dresses actually prepared; but at the last moment their father was visited by some of his friends, prominent members of the Society of Friends, who persuaded him that it would be by no means seemly that his daughters should appear in public in the Turkish dresses designed for the occasion. Consequently, although they are said to have been in a _dancing_ fury, they were obliged to stay away. This same story has, I know, come down independently through several branches of the family, and was told to me repeatedly, the last time not more than two years ago, by an old lady of the family, who was a niece of Mrs. Arnold and her sisters, and who has since died.”[5]