arther north, and
this particular locality was only just beginning to be fashionable.

[Illustration: WASHINGTON ARCH. "... Let us hope that we will always
keep Washington Square as it is today--our little and dear bit of
fine, concrete history, the one perfect page of our old, immortal New
York."]

A friend of the Commissary's, and a truly illustrious visitor at the
Hill, was Sir. Jeffrey Amherst, later Lord Amherst. He made Mortier's
house his headquarters at the close of his campaigns waged against
French power in America. He is really not so well known as he should
be, for in those tangled beginnings of our country we can hardly
overestimate the importance of any one determined or strategic move,
and it is due to Amherst, very largely, that half of the State of New
York was not made a part of Canada. Incidentally, Amherst College is
named for him.

The worthy Commissary died, it is believed, at about the time that
trouble started. On April 13th, in the memorable year 1776, General
Washington made "the Hill" his headquarters, and the house built by
the British army official was the scene of some of the most stirring
conferences that marked the beginning of the Revolution.

At the vitally important officers' councils held behind those tall,
white columns, there was one man so unusual, so brilliant, so
incomprehensible, that a certain baffling interest if not actual
romance attaches itself automatically to the bare utterance or
inscription of his name,--Aaron Burr. He was aide-de-camp to General
Putnam, and already had a vivid record behind him. It was during
Washington's occupancy of Richmond Hill that Burr grew to love the
place which was later to be his own home.

I confess to a very definite weakness for Aaron Burr. Few hopeless
romanticists escape it. Dramatically speaking, he is one of the most
striking figures in American history, and I imagine that I have not
been the first dreamer of dreams and writer of books who has haunted
the scenes of his flesh-and-blood activity in the secret,
half-shamefaced hope of one day happening upon his ghost!

From the day of his graduation from college at sixteen, he somehow
contrived to win the attention of everyone whom he came near. He still
wins it. We love to read of his frantic rush to the colours, guardian
or no guardian; of the steel in him which lifted him from a bed of
fever to join the Canadian expedition; of his daring exploits of
espionage disguised as a Fre