And in the midst of this tremendous pressure arrived George Washington Lafayette.

It was on the first Saturday of his retirement into the deep obscurity of his library, with orders that no one knock under penalty of driving him from the house, that Hamilton, opening the door suddenly with intent to make a dash for his office, nearly fell over Angelica.  She was standing just in front of the door, and her face was haggard.

“How long have you been here?” demanded her father.

“Three hours, sir.”

“Three!  Have you stood all that time?”

Angelica nodded.  She was determined not to cry, but she was wise enough not to tax the muscles of her throat.

Hamilton hesitated.  If the child fidgeted, she would distract his attention, great as were his powers of concentration; but another searching of her eyes decided him.

“Very well,” he said.  “Go in, but mind you imagine that you are a mouse, or you will have to leave.”

When he returned, she was sitting in a low chair by his desk, almost rigid.  She had neither doll nor book.  “This will never do,” he thought.  “What on earth shall I do with the child?” His eye fell upon the chaos of his manuscript.  He gathered it up and threw it on the sofa.  “There,” he said, “arrange that according to the numbers, and come here every five minutes for more.”

And Angelica spent two hours of every day in the library, useful and happy.

One day Hamilton was obliged to attend a Cabinet meeting, and to spend several hours at his office just after.  Returning home in the early winter dusk, he saw two small white faces pressed against the hall window.  One of them was Angelica’s, the other he had never seen.  As he entered, his daughter fell upon him.

“This is George Washington Lafayette,” she announced breathlessly.  “He came to-day, and he doesn’t speak any English, and he won’t go near Betsey or anyone but me, and he won’t eat, and I know he’s miserable and wretched, only he won’t cry.  His tutor’s ill at the Inn.”

The little Frenchman had retired to the drawing-room.  Angelica darted after him and dragged him forward into the light.  He was small for his age, but his features had the bold curious outline of his father’s.  He carried himself with dignity, but it was plain that he was terrified and unhappy.  Hamilton gave him a warm embrace, and asked him several questions in French.  The boy brightened at once, answered rapidly and intelligently, and took firm possession of his new friend’s hand.

“I am more happy now,” he announced.  “I don’t like the other people here, except this little girl, because they do not speak French, but you are a Frenchman, and I shall love you, as my father said I should—­long ago!  I will stay with you day and night.”

“Oh, you will?” exclaimed Hamilton.  “I am going to send you to school with my boys.”

“Oh, not yet, sir! not yet!” cried the boy, shrilly.  “I have seen so many strangers on that dreadful ship, and in France—­we hid here, there—­moving all the time.  I wish to live with you and be your little boy.”