ery pretty and have great simplicity of character, and the
extreme neatness of their appearance is truly delightful; cleanliness is
everywhere even more studiously attended to here than in England. What
gives me most pleasure is to see how completely the citizens are
brethren of one family. In America there are no poor and none even that
can be called peasants. Each citizen has some property and all citizens
have the same right as the richest individual."

After protestations of deep devotion and loneliness the letter ends
with:

"The night is far advanced, the heat intense, and I am devoured with
gnats, but the best of countries have their inconveniences. Adieu, my
love, adieu."

A very good picture that of customs and habits which would have been to
the lasting advantage of America to continue!

The letters of Lafayette grew more and more homesick and Adrienne's
feelings were like a harp with its strings attuned to respond to his
every emotion.

From Petersburg, Va., on July 17, 1777, he writes:

"I have received no news of you, and my impatience to hear from you
cannot be compared to any other earthly feeling. . . . You must have
learned the particulars of the commencement of my journey. You know that
I set out in a brilliant manner in a carriage, and I must now tell you
that we are all on horseback, having broken the carriage after my usual
praiseworthy custom, and I hope soon to write you that we have arrived
at Philadelphia on foot! . . ."

A few days later he says:

"I am each day more miserable, from having quitted you, my dearest
love. . . . I would give at this moment half of my existence for the
pleasure of embracing you again, and telling you with my own lips how I
love you. . . . Oh, if you knew how I sigh to see you, how I suffer at
being separated from you and all that my heart has been called on to
endure, you would think me somewhat worthy of your love."

Poor, lonely, young couple--each was suffering in a different way from
the separation, but Adrienne's misery was the hardest to bear, for not
only had she lost the little daughter who had been her greatest comfort
since the departure of her husband for America, but she now had a shock,
for in her husband's letter of the 12th of September, after the battle
of Brandywine, he wrote:

"Our Americans after having stood their ground for some time ended at
last by being routed; whilst endeavouring to rally them, the English
honoured me with a mus