One of this lady’s pointed shafts was directed at General Charles Lee, and this time the daring beauty met her match, for he not only vindicated himself from her charge of having worn “green breeches patched with leather,” but in language more caustic than courtly alluded to her own Jewish ancestry. There is a flavor of the wit of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Walpole in these jokes; but they raised a great laugh at the time, and were perhaps of a sort to be better relished in Miss Franks’s future home than in America. General Winfield Scott gives a description of an interview held with this lady at her residence, at Bath, when years had sadly impaired the beauty that had once captivated all hearts. A bright-eyed old lady in an easy-chair met Scott with an eager, kindly gaze and the query, “Is this the young rebel?” Such were her words, yet, before the conversation ended, Lady Johnson confessed that she had learned to glory in her rebel countrymen and wished that she had been a patriot, too. “Not that heaven had failed to bless her with a good husband, either,” she replied to Sir Henry’s gentle remonstrances. When the Americans regained possession of Philadelphia an effort was made by the Whigs to exclude from their gatherings those ladies who had taken part in the Meschianza and other British entertainments.[7] With this object in view, a ball was given at the City Tavern “to the young ladies who had manifested their attachment to the cause of virtue and freedom by sacrificing every convenience to the love of their country.”[8] This sounded patriotic enough, but we learn that General Arnold soon after gave an entertainment at which the Tory ladies appeared in full force, which is not to be wondered at in view of the intelligence that Mrs. Robert Morris communicated to her mother about this time: “I must tell you that Cupid has given our little General a more mortal wound than all the hosts of Britons could, unless his present conduct can expiate for his past,--Miss Peggy Shippen is the fair one.” With Cupid thus taking a hand in the game, and bringing to the feet of one of the brightest of the Tory belles the military commandant of Philadelphia, we can readily believe that General Wayne’s severe strictures upon the foolish fair fell upon unheeding ears: “Tell those Philadelphia ladies, who attended Howe’s assemblies & levees,” he writes in July, 1778, “that the heavenly, sweet, pretty red-coats--the accomplished gentlemen of the guards & grenadiers have been humbled on the plains of Monmouth. “The Knights of the _Blended Roses_ and of the _Burning Mount_ have resigned their laurels to Rebel officers, who will lay them at the feet of _those_ virtuous daughters of America, who cheerfully gave up ease and affluence in a city, for liberty and peace of mind in a cottage.”[9] [Illustration] FOOTNOTES: