Statesman Calhoun's attack on the pretty Peg begins with hidden adroitness. There lives in Philadelphia a smug dominie named Ely. On the merest Calhoun hint in the dark, Dominie Ely--who has a mustard-seed soul--writes the General a letter, wherein he charges the pretty Peg with every immorality. Dominie Ely prayerfully protests against the husband of a woman so morally ebon making one of the General's official family. The General is in flames in a moment. His loved and blooming Rachel was stabbed to death by slander! The pretty Peg was the blooming Rachel's favorite, in that old day at the Indian Queen! The General possesses every angry reason for being aroused, and he sends fiercely for smug Dominie Ely. The villifying Dominie Ely appears before the General in fear and trembling--color stricken from his fat cheek. He falteringly confesses that he has been inspired to his slanders by a Dominie Campbell. The furious General summons Dominie Campbell, about whom there is a Calhoun atmosphere of jackal and buzzard in even parts. The General hurls pointed questions at Dominie Campbell, and catches him in lies. While the General is putting to flight the two black-coat buzzards of slander, the war breaks out in a new quarter. The “Ladies of Washington,” compared to whom the Red Stick Creeks at the Horseshoe and the redcoat English at New Orleans are as children's toys, fall upon the General's social flank. They hate the pretty Peg because she is more beautiful than they. They resent her as the daughter of a tavern keeper--a common tapster!--who is now being lifted to a social eminence equal with their own. These reasons bring the “Ladies of Washington” to the field. But with militant sapiency they conceal them, and adopt as the pretended cause of their onslaught the slanders of those ophidians, Dominie Ely and Dominie Campbell. Mrs. Calhoun, wife of Statesman Calhoun, at the head of Capital fashion and social war-chief of the “Ladies of Washington,” says she will not “recognize” the pretty Peg. Mrs. Ingham, Mrs. Branch, and Mrs. Berrien, wives of the three Cabineteers who wear in private the colors of Statesman Calhoun, say they will not “recognize” the pretty Peg. Mrs. Donelson, wife of the General's private secretary and _ex officio_ “Lady of the White House,” says she will not “recognize” the pretty Peg. The latter drawing-room Red Stick is the General's niece. Also, she is in fashionable leading strings to Mrs. Calhoun, who as social war-chief of the “Ladies of Washington” dazzles and benumbs her. Mrs. Donelson approaches the General concerning the pretty Peg. “Anything but that, Uncle!” she says. “I am sorry to offend you, but I cannot 'recognize' Mrs. Eaton.” “Then you'd better go back to Tennessee, my dear!” returns the General, between puffs at his clay pipe. Mrs. Donelson and her unwilling spouse go back to Tennessee. The war against the pretty Peg goes on.