“No, sir, I am well enough pleased with myself.  I am worrying lest General Washington ask me to dance.  It will be bad enough to go out with Mr. Adams, who snaps at me every time I venture a remark, but he at least is not a giant, and I do not feel like a dwarf.  When the President leads me out—­that is to say, when he did lead me out at the Inauguration ball, I was like to expire of mortification.  I felt like a little polar cub trotting out to sea with a monster iceberg.  And he never opened his lips to distract my mind, just solemnly marched me up and down, as if I had done something naughty and were being exhibited.  I saw Kitty Livingston giggle behind her fan, and Kitty Duer drew herself up to her full height, which is quite five feet six, and looked down upon me with a cruel amusement.  Women are so nasty to each other.  Thank heaven I have a new gown for to-night—­anyhow!”

Hamilton laughed heartily; she always amused him, she was half his wife, half the oldest of his children.  “And you are fresher far than any of them; let that console you,” he said, arranging her necklace.  “I am sure both the President and the Vice-President will take you out; they hardly would have the bad taste not to.  And you look very sweet, hanging on to Washington’s hand.  Don’t imagine for a moment that you look ridiculous.  Fancy, if you had to walk through life with either of them.”

Betsey shuddered and smoothed her brow.  “It would be a walk with the dear General,” she said.  “I dare not dwell upon what it would be with Mr. Adams—­or anyone else!  You are amazing smart, yourself, to-night.”

“This new costume depressed me for a moment, for it is very like one Laurens used to wear upon state occasions, but I had not the courage to wear the light blue with the large gilt buttons, and the pudding cravat Morris inconsiderately sent me; not with Jefferson’s agonized eye to encounter.  The poor man suffers cruelly at our extravagance and elegance.”

“He is an old fright,” quoth Betsey, “and I’d not dance with him, not if he went on his knees.”

She looked her husband over with great pride.  He wore a coat of plum-coloured velvet, a double-breasted Marseilles vest, white satin breeches, white silk stockings, and pumps.  There were full ruffles of lace on his breast and wrists.  A man of to-day has to be singularly gifted by nature to shine triumphant above his ugly and uniform garb, whereas many a woman wins a reputation for beauty by a combination of taste with the infinite range modern fashion accords her.  In the days of which we write, a man hardly could help looking his best, and while far more decorative than his descendant, was equally useful.  And as all dressed in varying degrees of the same fashion, none seemed effeminate.  As for Hamilton, his head never looked more massive, his glance more commanding, than when he was in full regalia; nor he more ready for a fight.  All women know the psychological effect of being superlatively well dressed.  In the days of our male ancestors’ external vanities it is quite possible that they, too, felt unconquerable when panoplied in their best.