r the still longer journey whence he was nevermore to
return--the brilliant young officer with whom she had danced at the
great fete, the "Mischianza," given by the British army to Sir William
Howe only two years before in Philadelphia--the gay man of fashion who
had written versicles in her honor, and whose graceful pen-portrait
of the fair girl is still in the possession of the Shippen family--her
thickly-powdered hair drawn up into a tower above her forehead and
bedecked with ribbons and strings of pearls in the fashion then newly
imported out of France, the last modish freak of Marie Antoinette
before she laid her own stately head under the axe of the guillotine.

One can easily picture the terror and anguish she bore with her to
her old home; the uncertainty regarding her own fate and that of her
child; the haunting thought of young Andre's approaching doom, and,
more piteous than all else, the ever--recurring temptation that sorely
beset her to see no more the author of her undoing, the still beloved
father of her babe. It is difficult to imagine a more awful situation,
and one can almost forgive her first hasty sentence against the man
who had wrought her such ill. She forgot for a while that she had
taken upon her those sacred vows "for better, for worse:" the worst
indeed had come, and for my part I own I am glad that she chose the
nobler part. He was a traitor, but she, alas! was the traitor's wife.
She accompanied him to England, where her dignity and sweetness helped
to sustain her husband in the doubtful position he held in society.
Her letters to her family bear witness to his unfailing love for her
and anxious care of her welfare, but breathe a spirit of resignation
incompatible with perfect happiness. Once only did she return to
America. After peace was proclaimed she visited her beloved old home,
but meeting with much unkindness from her former friends, soon left
for England again. She died in 1804, surviving Arnold but three years.

A lady of this city, the granddaughter of our first republican
governor, told me that two of Arnold's grandsons came to America some
years ago, and to their great surprise found themselves unable to
make any figure in Philadelphia society, where they were quietly but
persistently ignored, so strong was the public prejudice against their
name.

Arnold died in London in the winter of 1801. We shrink away almost
appalled from the awful picture of that death-bed--the neglecte