as a sort of Executive Committee. The shirts provided were cut out at her house. A letter to Dr. Franklin, part of which has been published, shows how earnestly she was engaged in the work. The Marquis de Chastellux thus describes a visit which he paid her about this time: After this slight repast, which only lasted an hour and a half, we went to visit the ladies, agreeable to the Philadelphia custom, where the morning is the most proper hour for paying visits. We began by Mrs. Bache. She merited all the anxiety we had to see her, for she is the daughter of Mr. Franklin Simple in her manners, like her respected father, she possesses his benevolence. She conducted us into a room filled with work, lately finished by the ladies of Philadelphia. This work consisted neither of embroidered tambour waistcoats, nor of net work edging, nor of gold and silver brocade. It was a quantity of shirts for the soldies of Pennsylvania. The ladies bought the linen from their own private purses, and took a pleasure in cutting them out and sewing them themselves. On each shirt was the name of the married or unmarried lady who made it; and they amounted to twenty-two hundred." "

In another letter to her father, speaking of her having met with General and Mrs. Washington several times, she adds, "He always inquires after you in the most affectionate manner, and speaks of you highly. We danced at Mrs. Powell's on your birth-day, or night, I should say, in company together, and he told me it was the anniversary of his marriage; it was just twenty years that night." Washington dancing! The statue stepped down from its pedestal !

Miss Mary Philipse,-afterwards the wife of Captain Roger Morris, who was attainted of treason, and suffered confiscation in punishment of his "loyalty," is celebrated as having fascinated Washington, when, in his twenty-fourth year, he travelled

from Virginia to Boston, on horseback, attended by his aidesde-camp. He was entertained in New York at the house of Mr. Beverley Robinson, whose wife was the sister of the charming Mary Philipse. It seems quite problematical whether the young chief actually offered himself and suffered the mortification of a refusal, but it is not disputed that his heart was touched, and that the young lady might have been the wife of the Commander-in-chief, and the lady of our first President, if she had chosen. She is represented to have been one of those who rule all about them by an irresistible charm, and the honor in which her memory is held among her descendants proves that Washington was wise in love as well as in war.

The wife of the traitor Arnold was the daughter of Edward Shippen, Chief Justice of Pennsylvania, of a family distinguished among the aristocracy of the day, and prominent after the commencement of the contest among those who cherished loyalist principles. She was a beautiful girl of eighteen when she became the object of Arnold's attentions; but although he appears, even before marriage, to have imbued her with his own discontented and rancorous feelings towards those who thwarted his plans of selfish ambition, there is not a shadow of proof that the knowledge of his treason did not fall on her, as on the country, like a thunderbolt. But it cannot be pretended that she was one of the women who help to keep men true and brave.

"She was young, gay, and frivolous; fond of display and admiration, and used to luxury; she was utterly unfitted for the duties and privations of a poor man's wife. A loyalist's daughter, she had been taught to mourn over even the poor pageantry of colonial rank and authority, and to recollect with pleasure the pomp of those brief days of enjoyment, when military men of noble station were her admirers.

"Mrs. Arnold was at breakfast with her husband and the aides-de-camp Washington and the other officers having not yet come when the letter arrived which bore to the traitor the first intelligence of André's capture. He left the room immediately, went to his wife's chamber, sent for her, and briefly informed her of the necessity of his instant flight to the enemy. This was, probably, the first intelligence she received of what had been so long going on; the news overwhelmed her, and when Arnold quitted the apartment, he left her lying in a swoon. on the floor.

"Her almost frantic condition is described with sympathy by Colonel Hamilton, in a letter written the next day: 'The General,' he says, 'went to see her; she upbraided him with being in a plot to murder her child, raved, shed tears, and lamented the fate of the infant. All the sweetness

of beauty, all the loveliness of innocence, all the tenderness of a wife, and all the fondness of a mother, showed themselves in her appearance and conduct.'-He, too, expresses his conviction that she had no knowledge of Arnold's plan, till h's announcement to her that he must banish himself from his country forever. The opinion of other persons qualified to judge without prejudice, acquitted her of the charge of having participated in the treason. John Jay, writing from Madrid to Catharine Livingston, says All the world here are cursing Arnold, and pitying his wife.' And Robert Morris writes-'Poor Mrs. Arnold! was there ever such an infernal villain !'

The

"Mrs. Arnold went from West Point to her father's house; but was not long permitted to remain in Philadelphia traitor's papers having been seized, by direction of the Executive authorit es, the correspondence with Andr was brought to light; suspicion rested on her; and by an order of the Council, dated Oct. 27th, she was required to leave the state, to return no more during the continuance of the war. She accordingly departed to join her husband in New York. The respect aud forbearance shown towards her on her journey through the

country, notwithstanding her banishment, testified the popular belief in her innocence. M. de Marbois relates, that when she stopped at a village where the people were about to burn Arnold in effigy, they put it off till the next night."

Truth to say, these reminiscences of the women of our forming day are so interesting, that we might extract more than half the book if we should indulge our disposition to hold up to honor the daughters of the various portions of this extensive country, whose characters were brought out by the influences and chances of the times. We owe them an incalculable debt, to be repaid only by the best possible use of the blessings they bequeathed us, and an interest in the future of our country equal to that which inspired their efforts and sacrifices.

WESTERN TRAITS.

If there be a country on earth where hospitality is free and hearty, it is ours. Whatever faults we may possess as a people, this one virtue-if virtue it may be called which is rather a gratification than a sacrifice of the natural promptings-is flourishing to a degree unknown elsewhere. It seems the spontaneous and generous fruit of our overflowing prosperity; the impul sive rendering to the fellow-creature of the debt which we owe to the All-bounteous Parent. When not crushed by self-induced Penury, or chilled by empty pride, the American heart responds to the claim of the stranger with unerring, electric precision. Whether guests are numbered in thousands, while the government is called upon to play host, or the single stranger knocks at the door of a log-cabin in the midst of a prairie, no hesitation occurs as to the reception, refreshment, and aid of the weary and discouraged traveller. If immigrants overflow our alms-houses and hospitals, we build more; accommodating the surplus, meanwhile, by temporary arrangement, at any cost. private visiters come down upon us in avalanches, we turn the house out of doors, and make beds in impossible places, rather than refuse to open our doors to any one coming in the sacred character of guest. If our national character suffer-according to certain English observers-from the lack of the ennobling seù