The historian of the past has, as a rule, been pleased to treat with dignified silence the lighter side of Colonial life, allowing the procession of noble men and fair women to sweep on, grand, stately, and imposing, but lacking the softer touches that belong to social and domestic life. So much has been written and said of the stern virtues of the fathers and mothers of the Republic, and of their sacrifices, privations, and heroism, that we of this generation would be in danger of regarding them as types of excellence to be placed upon pedestals, rather than as men and women to be loved with human affection, were it not for some old letter, or diary, or anecdote that floats down to us from the past, revealing the touch of nature that makes them our kinsfolk by the bond of sympathy and interest, of taste and habit, as well as by that of blood. The dignified Washington becomes to us a more approachable personality when, in a letter written by Mrs. John M. Bowers, we read that when she was a child of six he dandled her on his knee and sang to her about “the old, old man and the old, old woman who lived in the vinegar-bottle together,” or when we come across a facetious letter of his own in which the general tells how his cook was “sometimes minded to cut a figure,” notably, when ladies were entertained at camp, and would, on such occasions, add to the ordinary roast and greens a beefsteak pie or a dish of crabs, which left only six feet of space between the different dishes instead of twelve; or again, when General Greene writes from Middlebrook, “We had a little dance at my quarters. His Excellency and Mrs. Greene danced upwards of three hours without once sitting down. Upon the whole we had a pretty little frisk.”