impressed me, and which often recurs to my memory. We--that is, Mr.
Montresor, and my Aunt Gainor and I--of a Saturday afternoon rode over by
the lower ferry and up Gray's Lane, and so to Mr. Hamilton's country-seat.
"The Woodlands," as it was called, stood on a hill amid many beautiful
trees and foreign shrubs and flowers. Below it ran the quiet Schuylkill,
and beyond, above the governor's woods, could be seen far away Dr.
Kearsley's fine spire of Christ Church. No better did Master Wren himself
ever contrive, or more proportioned to the edifice beneath it.

On the porch were Mr. Hamilton and Mrs. Penn, with saucy gray eyes, and
Mrs. Ferguson. A slim young girl, Rebecca Franks, was teasing a cat. She
teased some one all her days, and did it merrily, and not unkindly. She was
little and very pretty, with a dark skin. Did she dream she should marry a
British soldier--a baronet and general--and end her days in London well on
in the century yet to come?

Andrew Allen, whose father, the chief justice, took his wife, Margaret,
from this house, sat on the steps near Miss Franks, and beside her little
Peggy Shippen, who already gave promise of the beauty which won for her so
pitiful a life. Nothing in this garden of gay women and flowers foretold
the tragedy of West Point. I think of it now with sad wonder.

In one or another way these people became known in our annals. Most of
them were of the more exclusive party known as the governor's set, and
belonged to the Church of England. With the Galloways, Cadwaladers,
Willings, Shippens, Rawles, and others, they formed a more or less
distinct society, affecting London ways, dining at the extreme hour of
four, loving cards, the dance, fox-hunting, and to see a main of
game-cocks. Among them--not of them--came and went certain of what were
called "genteel" Quakers--Morrises, Pembertons, Whartons, and Logans.