Grove's Hotel when a visitor at headquarters.

"The building is now substantially in the condition it was during
Washington's occupation of it. The same massive timbers span the
ceiling; the old fire-place with its wide-open chimney is ready for
the huge back-logs of yore; the seven doors are in their places;
the rays of the morning sun still stream through the one window; no
alteration in form has been made in the old piazza--the adornments on
the walls, if such the ancient hostess had, have alone been changed
for souvenirs of the heroes of the nation's independence. In
presence of these surroundings, it requires but little effort of the
imagination to restore the departed guests. Forgetting not that this
was Washington's private residence, rather than a place for the
transaction of public business, we may, in the old sitting-room
respread the long oaken table, listen to the blessing invoked on the
morning meal, hear the cracking of joints, and the mingled hum of
conversation. The meal dispensed, Mrs. Washington retires to appear at
her flower beds or in her parlor to receive her morning calls. Colfax,
the captain of the life-guard, enters to receive the orders of the
day--perhaps a horse and guard for Washington to visit New Windsor,
or a barge for Fishkill or West Point, is required; or it may be
Washington remains at home and at his writing desk conducts his
correspondence, or dictates orders for army movements. The old
arm-chair, sitting in the corner yonder, is still ready for its former
occupant.

"The dinner hour of five o'clock approaches; the guests of the day
have already arrived. Steuben, the iron drill-master and German
soldier of fortune, converses with Mrs. Washington. He had reduced
the simple marksmen of Bunker Hill to the discipline of the armies
of Europe and tested their efficiency in the din of battle. He has
leisure now, and scarcely knows how to find employment for his active
mind. He is telling his hostess, in broken German-English, of the
whale (it proved to be an eel) he had caught in the river. Hear his
hostess laugh! And that is the voice of Lafayette, relating perhaps
his adventures in escaping from France, or his mishap in attempting
to attend Mrs. Knox's last party. Wayne, of Stony Point; Gates, of
Saratoga; Clinton, the Irish-blooded Governor of New York, and their
compatriots--we may place them all at times beside our _Pater Patriae_
in this old room, and hear amid the mingled hum his