Page 32 (1/1)

The days that folloere brilliant links in a fierce sequence of gaiety; and this though the weather was so hot that the very candles in their sconces drooped, dripping their rette and lace, scarlet coat and scarf A sort of midsummer hts, we drove at noontide, with the sun flaring in a sky of sapphire, we boated on the Bronx, we galloped out to the lines, escorted by a troop of horse, to see the Continental outposts beyond Tarrytown--so bold they had becoons if our glasses lied not, well horsed, newly saddled, holsters of bearskin,on crested hel-buckles And how my heart drummed and the red blood leaped in ht of my own comrades! And how I envied theht of day, harnessed for battle, flying no false colors for concealment--all fair and clean and aboveboard! And I a spy!

We were gay, I say, and the town had gone mid-summer mad of its own fancy--a fevered, convulsive reaction fro endured; and while the outlook for the King was no whit better here, and much worse in the South, yet, as it was not yet desperate, the garrison, the commander, and the Governorfro off the lethargy of spring, paced their cage with a restlessness that quickened to a mania for some relief in the mad distraction of folly and frivolity

And first, Sir Peter gave a ball at our house in honor of Elsin Grey, and we danced in the state drawing-roo-room, and Sir Henry walked a minuet with the Hon Elsin Grey, and I had her to wine and later in a Westchester reel Too , and worse still when the foundation is laid in oranged tea! Too , that the red ran fro the face-powder, and the bare enameled shoulders of the women were frosted with perspiration like deet roses

That was the first frolic given in her honor, followed by that wild dance at the Governor's, where the thickets of clustered candles drooped like lilies afire, and great islands of ice melted in the punch-bowls ere they had been emptied a third And yet the summer madness continued; by day we drove in couples, in Italian chaises, orIsland, or sailed the bay to the Narrows, or played rustic and fished in the bay; at night we danced, danced, danced, and I saw little of Elsin Grey save through a blaze of candle-light to move a minuet with her, to press her hand in a reel, or to conduct her to soarden pavilion where servants waited with ices a