's war for social would now move bravely. The tale of that double reception with its polite pushing forward ===in honor of her and her “good little secretary,” and the General's presence thereat, stately yet , fluttered from lip to lip like some bright bird. And, as such birds will, the farther it fluttered the brighter it grew. I've told you how I own no warrant, whether of education or natural trend, to on wax-lights and polished floors and satins; but so far as I might trap the of folk who should have such matters of and music on their tongues' ends, the most guarded decision went to it that Peg's position had become as surely as the pole-star, and might with as much safety be observed and by whenever any of your blind of the drawing rooms should lose a course or find himself in deep, strange waters.  
Like a great captain who in the wake of victory makes speed to again strike the enemy while yet the latter is disorganized and before he can re-collect formation or even hope, Peg was next and swiftly in the field with that dinner for her glory at the Russian legation, tendered by the wily Krudener—he of the and the heels. The Tartar, as the General called him, for the favor of the General and Van Buren, was keen to note how a civility done Peg would become a key to the best good will of both. After Krudener's, came the cabinet reception at our “good little secretary's,” where Peg would ; and since Van Buren lived but a half-dozen houses north from Peg's, it was hardly to step beyond her own door. Then followed the ball given by the British with Peg in the place of , and the Viscount Vaughn to lead Peg in the first figure with his own diplomatic hand.
 
Who could have been more delighted than the General with this of success now spread to our pretty Peg's uninterrupted feet, and that under the jaundiced eyes of her enemies? The General could not be present at either the “good little secretary's,” the Russian or the English house; but he was indomitable to hear; and never , nor macaroni, nor about London town, gave ear of warmer to the nightly annals of Mayfair than did the General to those stories of Peg's victories. Who were there and what they did and said, would be his constant curiosity; and indeed he carried question-putting to the of what stood .
 
“But can't you see, sir,” demanded the General, when I told him how his heat to trace Peg's skirts through every dance, or learn the calling list of each reception, would jostle one's better conception of him, “can't you see that with the world and the law as made, this is the trial of Peg's , and freighted of life or death?”
 
“No,” said I, full bluntly; “and if you will have my notion then, I call these things antic matters of apeish trick and , not worth a man's attention.”
 
“You are a barbarian,” retorted the General, oracularly. “These functions—these dinners and dances and receptions—are trials by jury where the repute of folk, peculiarly the repute of women folk, is passed upon. The verdict in her favor means the world and all for Peg. It is the law.”
 
“And if it be,” said I, “it is but a bad law and a cheap law, and one whereat I should snap my fingers.”
 
“And yet, sir,” replied the General, “wondrous highly as you hold yourself, you are not yet grown to be the world. It's Peg's happiness—a matter of being within the pale, without which she would feel against and . And remember this, sir, while you flourish with your defiances, that a bad law is none the less a law, with penalty in nowise to be mollified because of that badness at which you rail. Wherefore I deem, these drawing-room trinkets of a first weight in Peg's concerns; I shall know as much of them as I well may, and take my chance of falling in your graces.”
 
After that, and somewhat in the broader manner of a jest, I would each day lay out to the General whatever of polite gaities took place the night before; and while I recited those present, and what they did or said, or failed to do or say, and particularly when such relation told for Peg, he would smoke, and listen, and , and on occasion comment like unto any grandmother gossip who still enjoys by second hands those scenes which long ago her years taught her to desert.
 
These exploits of waxed floors and dinner tables, while the General might have neither art nor lot therein, drew me along with them—for all I loved them not—like a magnet. For one thing, I would how Peg fared; and then, the General would have me attend, to the purpose that he be given their story.
 
It was at the Russian's I was called on to witness the iron steadiness of Peg—albeit I could have wished the Dutch , who offended, a man, that I might pinch his neck. You must know, then, how the Minister from the Netherlands was a bloated creature of beer and butter-tub proportions—a Herr Huygens, he was; and Frau Huygens, his lady—save the mark!—was as dropsical as he. The latter ungentlewoman would be a , duck-built cabbage thing of fifty years; and of no little standing for a money-prudence and strict economy, since while as rich as that commerce of gin by which her had builded up their fortunes, she owned celebration for but one frock—a most fantastic garment for color and flounce like the of a clown in a kirmess.
 
At the Krudener dinner, your Frau Huygens, whose place was next to Peg's, would up and leave her chair immediately she was seated; and all with a lofty face as of one insulted, and following a great looking of Peg over through a spying glass.
 
Spurred by this rudeness, Krudener directed a servant to remove the chair and plate and table furniture of that place. This was swiftly done; and next, to show his own feeling of the offered under his roof, our Russian would have the plate and the rest, including the chair, broken to pieces in one corner of the apartment and thrown upon the blaze in the vast fireplace.
 
“They have been used by that woman of canals and gin-casks,” explained Krudener—under his of quiet and with his eye on Van Buren, I could tell how the Muscovite was in a towering rage—“and I have no servant so low he would now eat off that plate or sit in that chair. Let them be destroyed, and with them the recollection of the offence to our fair guest, which throughout my life I shall .” With this Krudener bowed deeply to Peg.
 
“Since you say so much, Baron,” responded Peg, “I am driven to tell you that you need have been to no . I should have remarked that person's going only for the relief it gave to be free of the nearness of one so gross.”
 
This our pretty Peg got off in a way of relieved superiority that was ; she lost nothing through the episode, but would gain ground thereby for her bearing.
 
In my first ill-humor to see this reasonless slight put upon our Peg, I looked about for the rotund Herr Huygens, with a view, I suppose—although I remember no clear plan in my angry head at the time—to have his opinion on the conduct of that wife, since he as her lord would be responsible. He was not present, nor had he been; it was as well, for I might have forgotten his sacred character as a Minister and said or done that which should be a further and more depressing to the .
 
The General, when he learned of the business, was even warmer than myself. He was all for having Van Buren give Herr Huygens his walking papers, and would scarce listen to less. The “good little secretary,” with Peg, herself, to aid, won him from his mood to the Dutchman and that offensive Frau. It bred a sharp alarm in the of Herr Huygens, for he would as soon lay down his life as his post of Minister, over the proud eminence whereof he gloated much.
 
An incident more to be merry with, and one carrying within itself the elements of fair , came off in the house of the English.
 
By this time your drawing-room forces had greatly abandoned the Vice-President's wife and the ladies Berrien, Branch and Ingham, to follow Peg. Among these, and glittering in the van, shone the Pigeon-breast. It was at the dance of the Viscount Vaughn that Pigeon-breast, after deeply considering the butter on his bread, made obviously and up to Peg.
 
In his earlier advances I did not see the tinsel fellow or I might have interposed to dash his good resolves; I was to first know of him in these bright relations of friendship for our side when I gained a glimpse of him across the wide ball room where, with Peg's hand held high, and maintaining a respectful distance between them as though Peg were itself, he led her through one of those slow dances—more, indeed, like a than any dance—which had of that hour.
 
I waited with much until the dance was to its end and Peg at liberty. I remembered, however, in her defence, that Peg was not aware of Pigeon-breast for one who had sought her harm. No one had told her of that splendid long speech to the General when Pigeon-breast chose to represent “Mrs. Calhoun and the ladies of Washington,” which latter term, under the fire of Peg's successes, had to a sour handful scarce equal to the task of filling a dinner table or constructing a quadrille.
 
“Why should you dance,” said I, when now I had gotten Peg by herself near a window, “why should you dance with such a ?”
 
“You mean,” returned Peg, “to tell me that he is no friend. As for that, I've known him for an ill-wisher and, as far as his strength went, an ill-doer, from the beginning.”
 
“And how would that news come to you?” said I. “Has the said anything?”
 
“Not so fierce, watch-dog, not so fierce!” whispered Peg. “Folk present are not cognizant of your mastiff sort and might wonder to learn of it. Wherefore, go quietly about me with your .” Peg would be amused by the energy of my distaste of Pigeon-breast. “The 'rogue' has said nothing. I knew he was my wrong-wisher from yourself.”
 
“Me?” cried I. “And how should you have had it from me when I have not breathed of the popinjay's existence?”
 
“How? Why, from your face, where I've been long to read much more than your tongue has ever told.”
 
“What of my face, then?”
 
“And I have wished you might see it! Whoever it was to approach me, I had but to watch your brow. Was your brow frank, open, friendly: he who came was a friend. Did you lower and gloom hatefully: he was an enemy who rapped at the gate. Now you gave this fop the look of a fiend when one day he would pass us in the square. And so by the light, or rather the of your frown, I read him.”
 
“All exceeding clever,” said I, half made to laugh by the airy fashion wherein Peg would toss this off, “all exceeding clever. But it brings me with interest to my question, why, then, did you honor him with a dance?”
 
“For the same reason,” said Peg, with a look of funny , “that an Indian scalps his .”
 
“Now what should that mean?”
 
“Wait and see, oh watch-dog!”
 
It was a bit later when Peg was again by my side.
 
“Do you know why I am back with you?” she asked. “Well, aside from the profound pleasure of your company, the more profound by contrast with that of those ones”—here she would include the ball room males with a sweep of her round arm—“I thought I would scalp my enemy before your eyes. You have a violent nature, watch-dog, and I reflected how the exhibition might bring you joy. Since you do not dance, your time must lie on your hands like iron; I would do somewhat to lighten it.”
 
Before I could ask Peg to the intent of her long speech, Pigeon-breast was pushing valourously our way.
 
“He comes for a second dance,” said Peg. “See, his name is next on my card.”
 
“And call you that scalping?” cried I. “At that rate, every man in the room will compete for your cruelty! Scalping, say you! I wish for the simple humor of it, a Seminole might hear you.”
 
The truth was I had fallen into a dudgeon with Peg for her notion of taking a ; she would confer heaven on this Pigeon-breast and call it “scalping!”
 
“I believe,” observed Pigeon-breast, with his nose fairly to the floor, so deeply would he bow, “I believe I will have the honor of another dance”—here another bow as lowly louted as the first.
 
As Pigeon-breast resumed the , he his arm and would lead Peg to her place.
 
But Peg drew back, as much to my bewilderment as that of the wonder-smitten Pigeon-breast himself, and with a manner coldly polite said:
 
“There is a mistake, sir; I could have promised you no dance, since I do not know you.”
 
“Mistake!” Pigeon-breast.
 
“Mistake,” repeated Peg, with, if anything, an access of ice. “I never before saw you; I could have put you down for no dance. One does not dance with strangers.” Then to me: “Your arm, if you please.”
 
As I carried Peg away, Pigeon-breast was heard to inarticulately moan and like a high wind in a keyhole. Later I him , in the room, drinking strong waters with both hands and as though he had a fish in his stomach.
 
“And now,” said I to Peg, as we moved away from the crushed Pigeon-breast, “why were you so bitter? That empty fellow was not worth so much. Besides, you have shamed him before the town; you hurt him to the heart.”
 
“Hurt him to the vanity,” corrected Peg. “If it be true that nothing dries more quickly than a woman's tear—and it is true, watch-dog—nothing cures more quickly than the hurt vanity of a man. That dandy will anon be as gay as a peacock. However, I would punish him. I have made him an Ishmael of the drawing-rooms; I have driven him forth from us, and he cannot return to the others for his of their cause is known. Did I not tell you, watch-dog, I was a revengeful woman?”
 
Altogether, I might have wished our Peg had taken another course with Pigeon-breast.
 
Thus to publicly drum him out of camp was a thought too . However, Pigeon-breast had for what he received, and I think, too, Peg was more moved by the audacious fun of the business than any darkling taste to have a , for all her word.
 
The General, I am minded, was of my view; it was the frolic of the thing to carry Peg away.
 
“Peg is young,” quoth the General, ; “our Peg is young. What would you have? She shall be older one day and more upon dignity. What shall more bound and frisk and play than your scapegrace kitten? And yet what more gravely decorous than your cat? By Joshua's horn! on the whole, I'm glad your Pigeon-breast was brought up with a round turn.”
 
It was one afternoon when the General came to me with a request that I seek out Noah at the Indian Queen and confer with him over the merits of a gentleman who to hold a certain office.
 
“This individual comes to me well spoken of,” said the General, “and yet I would know more of him, and that from one who has no to be grinded.”
 
While I made ready for my walk to the Indian Queen, the General unpouched another piece of interesting news.
 
“By the way,” said he, “our Peg has settled on April as a time for that dinner and ball. She would have had it sooner; but she does not now need the White House for any direct aid to her arms. She will save it for the close, and make the affair a sort of celebration.”
 
“It is a good thought,” said I. “It is wiser, since she has won her way with what should be her own resources, not to subtract from that success by any full blown movement of the White House upon the scene. Mean folk would say she could not have come through without you to be her ally.”
 
“And that is my notion, too!” coincided the General. “Peg's position is complete; the White House now would but divide her glory. We will offer her our East Room courtesies in April, and let it be for an old-time Roman triumph as when a victor returns from war. Peg well deserves a triumph; the Vice-Presidential and all whom it might control have moved heaven and earth for Peg's disaster and pulled and hauled like common sailor-folk on any rope to do her harm.”
 
“Does not April,” said I, “mark an unheard-of span for your social season? I had thought it might end with Lent.”
 
“And so it would,” smiled the General, “if now we were only Federalists like Adams, and remembered the Church of England as a guide. This, however, is a Presbyterian administration; wherefore, we shall none of your Lents, but drink and dance and dine as far into spring flowers as we will.”
 
“Being the earliest instance,” added I, “when to drink and to dance and to dine were called an evidence of Calvinism.”
 
Noah was pen-employed over certain wisdom which should find subsequent exposition in his paper.
 
“There are large money influences,” remarked Noah, thoughtfully, when we had talked a moment, “which have grown friendly about my associate, Watson Webb. They are offering a loan to our paper of fifty thousand dollars. You know”—this with his satirical air—“how papers are ever in want of a loan. These money folk bank on that to win us; perhaps, too, they find hope in my being a Jew.”
 
“And what would your associate do?” I asked.
 
“To be frank,” returned Noah, “he grants admiring ear to this song of siren money. I think we shall part company—Webb and I.”
 
“And yet,” s............