"You and I thought scarlet most becoming to our complexion, Joe Blake!"
says Sir George. "And my wife thinks there would not have been room for
two such great men on one side."

"Well, at any rate, you were better than that odious, swearing, crazy
General Lee, who was second in command!" cries Lady Warrington. "And I
am certain Mr. Washington never could write poetry and tragedies as you
can! What did the General say about George's tragedies, Harry?"

Harry burst into a roar of laughter (in which, of course, Mr. Miles must
join his uncle).

"Well!" says he, "it's a fact that Hagan read one at my house to the
General and Mrs. Washington and several more, and they all fell sound
asleep!"

"He never liked my husband, that is the truth!" says Theo, tossing up
her head, "and 'tis all the more magnanimous of Sir George to speak so
well of him."

And then Hal told how, his battles over, his country freed, his great
work of liberation complete, the General laid down his victorious sword,
and met his comrades of the army in a last adieu. The last
British soldier had quitted the shore of the Republic, and the
Commander-in-Chief proposed to leave New York for Annapolis, where
Congress was sitting, and there resign his commission. About noon, on
the 4th December, a barge was in waiting at Whitehall Ferry to convey
him across the Hudson. The chiefs of the army assembled at a tavern near
the ferry, and there the General joined them. Seldom as he showed his
emotion, outwardly, on this day he could not disguise it. He filled a
glass of wine, and said, 'I bid you farewell with a heart full of love
and gratitude, and wish your latter days may be as prosperous and happy
as those past have been glorious and honourable.' Then he drank to them.
'I cannot come to each of you to take my leave,' he said, 'but shall be
obliged if you will each come and shake me by the hand.'

General Knox, who was nearest, came forward, and the Chief, with tears
in his eyes, embraced him. The others came, one by one, to him, and
took their leave without a word. A line of infantry was formed from the
tavern to the ferry, and the General, with his officers following him,
walked silently to the water. He stood up in the barge, taking off his
hat, and waving a farewell. And his comrades remained bareheaded on the
shore till their leader's boat was out of view.

As Harry speaks very low, in the grey of evening, with sometimes a break
in his voice, we all s