The days of the Revolution were full of romance as well as of sterner history, and while the women of Massachusetts and the Carolinas, as well as those of interior Pennsylvania and rural New York, proved themselves made of sterner stuff than is the custom to expect from their sex, the belles of the great cities--great only for their times--of New York and Philadelphia flirted and danced and jested and made themselves in all ways agreeable to the red-clad soldiers of England. It may be that these last ladies unwittingly and against their will served the cause of their country by enervating the soldiers of the king and keeping them from the sterner training which was making hardy veterans of the Continentals. But romance and the stern aspects of war were not infrequently blended in strange fashion, as in the case of Mary Piper--better known as Polly Piper--of Boston, who was loved by a British soldier named Samuel Lee. Before the beginning of the struggle the Pipers moved to Concord; and when the "regulars" marched upon that place to secure the ammunition which was reported to General Gage as being stored there, Lee went with his regiment. But his heart was not in his work: love had taught him something, and he no longer, as at first, looked upon all Americans as benighted savages and their cause as flat treason. Miss Polly had scorned his suit as that of a British soldier, and this fact had worked a result. In the "running fight" at Concord he did not fire his musket; but he was shot as he ran from the field and was carried, severely wounded, into a house where the stricken were being cared for. A woman bent over him; and he opened his eyes to meet those of Polly Piper. He recovered, but not to serve again as a soldier of England; he returned no more to the red flag, but married Miss Polly and lived quietly in Concord until his death in 1790. Thus love won from the enemies of America at least one sword, and thus was romance justified of its works. The patriotic spirit which flamed throughout the land burned with no steadier or more brilliant glow than among the women. All are familiar with the famous picture entitled _The Spirit of '76_; but that picture is incomplete. The octogenarian and the boy should be waved upon their march by the wife and the mother, sending husband and son forth to peril or death, while they themselves turn with a smile to the bearing of privation or actual starvation. Not more strongly and nobly did the "spirit of '76" flourish in the hearts of the sons of the oppressed country than in those of its daughters, nor was the response more splendid.