t him stockings
and kept his wardrobe in order, there were frequent visitors. The
Livingston girls were spending the winter with their aunt, Lady
Sterling, and, with their beautiful cousin, the Lady Kitty Alexander,
often drove over to a five o'clock dinner or the more informal supper.
The Boudinots and Morgans, the generals in camp at Morristown and their
wives, and the more distinguished officers, were frequently dined at
Headquarters. Washington sat halfway in the table's length, with Mrs.
Washington opposite. Hamilton was placed at the head of the table on the
day of his arrival, a seat he retained while a member of the family. The
Chief encouraged him to talk, and it must be confessed that he talked
from the time he sat down till the meal finished. His ideas were always
on the rush, and talking was merely thinking aloud. As he expressed
himself with wit and elegance, and on subjects which interested them all
profoundly, illuminating everything he touched, old men and young would
lean forward and listen with respect to the wisdom of a young man who
was yet an infant in the eyes of the law. How he escaped being
insufferably spoiled can only be explained by the ceaseless activity of
his brain, and the fact that the essence of which prigs are made was not
in him. That he was utterly without commonplace conceit is indisputable,
for he was the idol of the family. Harrison christened him "The Little
Lion," a name his friends used for their aptest designation as long as
he lived, and assumed a paternal relation which finished only with the
older man's death. The Lady-in-chief made such a pet of him that he was
referred to in the irreverent Tory press as "Mrs. Washington's
Tom-cat."

"Alexander," said Kitty Livingston to him, one day, "have a care. You
are too fortunate. The jealous gods will smite you."

But Hamilton, thinking of those terrible months in the previous year, of
mental anxiety and physical hardship, when, in bitter weather, he had
often gone hungry and insufficiently clothed, and of his present arduous
duties, concluded there was a fine balance in his affairs which
doubtless would placate the gods.

II

In May and July there were illustrious additions to Washington's
family,--John Laurens and Lafayette. Both became the intimate friends of
Hamilton, the former one of the few passionate attachments of his life.
Although Hamilton was by no means indifferent to the affection he
inspired in nine-tenths of t