There can be little doubt that Mrs. Washington enjoyed her stay in Philadelphia far more than the period spent in New York.  In Philadelphia there was a very noticeable atmosphere of hospitality and easy friendliness; here too were many Southern visitors and Southern customs; for in those days of difficult travel Philadelphia seemed much nearer to Virginia than did New York.  Even with such a congenial environment Martha Washington, with her innate domesticity, was constantly thinking of life at Mount Vernon, and in the midst of festivities and assemblies of genuine diplomatic import, would stop to write to her niece at home such a thoroughly housewifely message as:  “I do not know what keys you have—­it is highly necessary that the beds and bed clothes of all kinds should be aired, if you have the keys I beg you will make Caroline put all the things of every kind out to air and brush and clean all the places and rooms that they were in.”

But Mrs. Washington was not alone in Philadelphia in this domestic tendency; many of those women who dazzled both Americans and foreigners with their beauty and social graces were most careful housekeepers, and even expert at weaving and sewing.  Sarah Bache, for example, might please at a ball, but the next morning might find her industriously working at the spinning wheel.  We find her writing her father, Ben Franklin, in 1790:  “If I was to mention to you the prices of the common necessaries of life, it would astonish you.  I should tell you that I had seven tablecloths of my own spinning.”  Again, she shrewdly requests her father in Paris to send her various articles of dress which are entirely too expensive in America, but the old gentleman’s answer seems still more shrewd, especially when we remember what a delightful time he was just then having with several sprightly French dames:  “I was charmed with the account you gave me of your industry, the tablecloths of your own spinning, and so on; but the latter part of the paragraph that you had sent for linen from France ... and you sending for ... lace and feathers, disgusted me as much as if you had put salt into my strawberries.  The spinning, I see, is laid aside, and you are to be dressed for the ball!  You seem not to know, my dear daughter, that of all the dear things in this world idleness is the dearest, except mischief.”

Her declaration in her letter that “there was never so much pleasure and dressing going on” is corroborated by the statement of an officer writing to General Wayne:  “It is all gaiety, and from what I can observe, every lady endeavors to outdo the other in splendor and show....  The manner of entertaining in this place has likewise undergone its change.  You cannot conceive anything more elegant than the present taste.  You can hardly dine at a table but they present you with three courses, and each of them in the most elegant manner.”

XV.  Theatrical Performances