addition to his goodness. We have
been very anxious to know how the inhabitants of Philadelphia have
fared. I understand that General Arnold, who bears a good character, has
the command of the city." She was writing from the Foulks estate, in
Montgomery County, where she was staying for a time, and her diary,
which concludes with the above quoted entry, is full of such warm
expressions of patriotism that none can doubt that Miss Sally, who died
a spinster, placed the cause of America even before the attractions of
such men as Major Stoddert and Captain Dandridge, who vainly attempted
to influence her to "change her condition," as the quaint old phrase
puts it.

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 f