“More gowns, Harriet!” he exclaimed. “You will ruin me by your extravagance. Haven’t you anything that will do?”
“I dare say that I can make shift for a time,” she replied. “But la! what’s the use of being in His Majesty’s service unless one profits by it?”
“That seems to be the opinion of every one connected with it,” he observed grimly.
“Harriet,” spoke Peggy timidly, uncertain as to the manner her proposition would be received, “I can sew very well indeed. Let me bring some of thy old frocks up to the mode. ’Twill save thy father money, and in truth things are monstrously high. That was one reason mother and I joined father in camp. Thee admired that cream brocade of mine that was made from mother’s wedding gown. Let me see if I cannot do as well with some of thy finery.”
“That’s all very well for you rebels,” spoke Harriet with some scorn, “but when one is with English nobility ’tis another matter. Father, what do you think? They sometimes wore homespun at camp even to the dinners. They were always busy at something, and now here Peggy wants to get right into sewing. Americans have queer ideas of amusement.”
“If there is one thing that I admire about the Americans ’tis the manner in which they bring up their daughters,” remarked her father with emphasis. “I have yet to see a girl of these colonies who was not proficient in housewifely arts. If Peggy can help you fix over some of your things let her. And do try to pattern after her thrifty ways, Harriet.”
“Peggy is quite welcome to fix them for herself,” said Harriet with a curl of her lips, and a slight shrug of her shoulders. “I shall get some new ones.”
Colonel Owen sighed, but left the room without further protest. The conversation set Peggy to thinking, and observing. There was indeed luxury on every hand, but there was also great waste. Wherever the British army settled they gave themselves up to such amusements as the city afforded or they could create. Fear, fraud and incompetence reigned in every branch of the service, and between vandalism and the necessities of war New York suffered all the woes of a besieged city. In the endeavor to keep pace with his spendthrift superiors her cousin’s household expenditures had run into useless excess.
Harriet plunged at once into the gaiety of the city with all the abandon of her nature, and Peggy, much against her inclination, was of necessity compelled to enter into it also. There were rides every clear day which revealed the strong defenses of the city. New York was in truth but a fortified camp. A first line of defense extended from the heights of Corlear’s Hook across the island to the Hudson. There was still another line further up near the narrow neck of land below Fort Washington, while a strong garrison guarded the outlying post of Kingsbridge. Peggy soon realized that unless she was given wings she could never hope to pass the sentinels. Every afternoon in the Grand Battery along the bay a German band of hautboys played for the amusement of the officers and townspeople, and here Peggy met many of the young “macaroni” officers or feminine “toasts” of the city. She grew weary of the incessant round of entertainments. There had been much social intercourse at the camp, but it had been tempered by sobriety, and life was not wholly given up to it. Peggy resolved that she would have to occupy herself in other ways.
“Cousin William,” she said one morning, seeking Colonel Owen in his study, where he sat looking over some papers with a frowning brow, “may I talk with thee a little?”