We are not accustomed to associate minuets and “pretty frisks” with the stern realities of Revolutionary days, yet as brief mention of them comes down to us, they serve to light up the background of that rugged picture, as when Miss Sally Wister tells, in her sprightly journal, of the tricks played by herself and a bevy of gay girls upon the young officers quartered in the old Foulke mansion, at Penllyn, soon after the battle of Brandywine. Miss Wister’s confidences are addressed to Miss Deborah Norris, afterwards the learned Mrs. George Logan, and the principal actors in the century-old drama are the lively Miss Sally, who dubs herself “Thy smart journalizer,” and Major Stoddert from Maryland, who in the first scenes plays a _rôle_ somewhat similar to that of Young Marlow, but later develops attractions of mind and character that Miss Sally finds simply irresistible. She considers him both “good natur’d and good humor’d,” and evinces a fine discrimination in defining the application of these terms, which shows that a Quaker maiden in love may still retain a modicum of the clear-headedness which is one of the distinguishing characteristics of her sect. The cousinly allusions to “chicken-hearted Liddy”--Miss Liddy Foulke, later known as Mrs. John Spencer--and her numerous admirers are very interesting. When Miss Sally, who is evidently reducing the heart of the gallant major to “ashes of Sodom,” naively remarks, _à propos_ of Liddy’s conquests, “When will Sally’s admirers appear? Ah! that, indeed. Why, Sally has not charms sufficient to pierce the heart of a soldier. But still I won’t despair. Who knows what mischief I yet may do?” we feel that maidens’ hearts in 1777 were made on much the same plan that they are nowadays, and that even to so rare a _confidante_ as Miss Deborah Norris the whole was not revealed.