“You shall wind that this evening, sir.  Well, she came here about three months ago with Captain Croix of the British army, and rumour hath it that he left a wife in England, and that this lady’s right to the royal name of Capet is still unchallenged.  The story goes that she was born about eighteen years ago, on a French frigate bound for the West Indies, that her mother died, and that, there being no one else of that royal name on board, the Captain adopted her; but that a baby and a ship being more than he could manage, he presented the baby to a humble friend at Newport, by the name of Thompson, who brought her up virtuously, but without eradicating the spirit of the age, and one fine day she disappeared with Colonel Croix, and after a honeymoon which may have been spent in the neighbourhood of any church between here and Rhode Island, or of none, they arrived in New York, and took the finest lodgings in town.  I suppose Dr. Franklin was a friend of her humble guardian, he is so philanthropic, and that he is willing to take my lady’s word that all is well—­and perhaps it is.  I feel myself quite vicious in repeating the vaguest sort of gossip—­active, though.  Who knows, if she had worn a wig, or an inch of powder, and employed the accepted architect for her tower, she would have passed without question?  Another pillar for my argument, sir.”

“As it is, you are even willing to believe that she is a daughter of the house of France,” said Hamilton, with a hearty laugh.  “Would that the world were as easily persuaded of what is good for it as of what tickles its pettiness.  Shall you ask this daughter of the Capets to the house?”

“I have not made up my mind,” said Mrs. Hamilton, demurely.

The two older children, Philip and Angelica, came tumbling into the room, and Hamilton romped with them for a half-hour, then flung them upon their mother, and watched them from the hearth rug.  Betsey was lovely with her children, who were beautiful little creatures, and Hamilton was always arranging them in groups.  The boy and girl pulled down her hair with the yellow wool, until all her diminutive figure and all her face, but its roguish black eyes, were extinguished; and Hamilton forgot the country.

Elizabeth Schuyler was a cleverer woman than her meed of credit has led the world to believe.  She understood Hamilton very well even then, although, as his faults but added to his fascination in the eyes of those that loved him, the knowledge did not detract from her happiness.  In many ways she made herself necessary to him; at that time she even kept his papers in order.  He talked to her freely on every subject that interested him, from human nature to finance, taxes, and the law, and she never permitted a yawn to threaten.  He read aloud to her every line he wrote, and while she would not have presumed to suggest, her sympathy was one of his imperative needs.  When his erratic fancy flashed him into seductive