In B. Bond we recognize one of the Meschianza belles, while the Miss Vining to whom Miss Franks refers was a Wilmington girl, whose beauty, grace, and fluency in speaking their language made her a great favorite with the French officers in America, who wrote home so enthusiastically of her charms that her name became known at the court of France, the queen herself expressing a desire to meet the famous American beauty.[43] “No loss for partners,” the lively lady continues, “even I am engaged to seven different gentlemen for you must know ’tis a fix’d rule never to dance but two dances at a time with the same person. Oh how I wish Mr. P. wou’d let you come in for a week or two--tell him I’ll answer for your being let to return. I know you are as fond of a gay life as myself--you’d have an opportunity of rakeing as much as you choose either at Plays, Balls, Concerts or Assemblys. I’ve been but 3 evenings alone since we mov’d to town. I begin now to be almost tired.”[44] It is probably to the revival of the hoop about 1778, of which Miss Franks speaks, that some humorous verses refer, in which the hoop and anti-hoop factions are described as arraying themselves for battle upon the floor of the Assembly room. The anti-hoop party was under the leadership of Narcissa, who with her followers declared that it was their opinion “That unless They had it in their Power to dress As they thought proper, nought would be At last left to their Option free, And so concluded, one and all, Hoopless to go to the next Ball.” The hoop party was conducted by Fribeto, the Nash of the time, a miniature beau, who suggests to the mind Pope’s _dramatis personæ_ in the “Rape of the Lock:” “A gayly brilliant thing That sparkled in the shining ring. * * * * * This same Fribeto once was chose Director of the Belles and Beaux, When’er in full Assembly they Should meet to dance an hour away.” Indeed, the scheme and treatment of this rhymed _Bataille de Dames_ are evidently borrowed from Pope’s brilliant satire, and some verses seem not unworthy the pen of Francis Hopkinson, as, for instance, a description of the two factions upon the Assembly night: “Here walks a Fair, from Head to toe As straight as ever she can go; And here a Dame with wings so wide, Three Yards at least from side to side. “Hoops and no Hoops dividing stand In dread array on either Hand, Resolved to try th’ important Cause By that Assembly’s fixed Laws.”