And now, too, the British occupation of New York assumed its greatest
proportions. The kinds of festivity in which Margaret so brilliantly
shone, lent to the town the continual gaiety in which she so keenly
delighted. The loyalist families exerted themselves to protect the
king's officers from dulness, and the king's officers, in their own
endeavours to the same end, helped perforce to banish dulness from the
lives of their entertainers. 'Twas a gay town, indeed, for some folk,
despite the vast ugly blotches wrought upon its surface by two great
fires since the war had come, and despite the scarcity of provisions
and the other inconveniences of a virtual state of siege. Tom and I
saw much of that gaiety, for indeed at that time our duties were not
as active as we wished they might be, and they left us leisure enough
to spend in the town. But we were pale candles to the European
officers--the rattling, swearing, insolent English, the tall and
haughty Scots, the courtly Hessians and Brunswickers.
"What, sister, have we grown invisible, Bert and I?" said Tom to
Margaret, as we met her in the hall one night, after we had returned
from a ball in the Assembly Rooms. "Three times we bowed to you this
evening, and got never a glance in return."
"'Faith," says she, with a smile, "one can't see these green uniforms
for the scarlet ones!"
"Ay," he retorted, with less good-humour than she had shown, "the
scarlet coats blind some people's eyes, I think, to other things than
green uniforms.
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