beasts. General Lafayette was determined, if possible, to counteract
this abominable scheme; but as, unfortunately, there was no one who
could interpret for him but the speculator himself, he found it
difficult to make the poor Indians understand their real position. He
had already seen and talked with them, and was feeling very badly at not
being able to do more. This morning he was to receive them at his house,
and his own family, with one or two personal friends, had been invited
to witness the interview.

Madame de Lasteyrie was soon followed by her daughters, and in a few
moments I found myself shaking some very pretty hands, and smiled upon
by some very pretty faces. It was something of a trial for one who had
never been in a full drawing-room in his life, and whom Nature had
predestined to _mauvaise honte_ to the end of his days. Still I made the
best of it, and as there is nothing so dreadful, after all, in a bright
eye and rosy lip, and the General's invitation to look upon his house as
my home was so evidently to be taken in its literal interpretation, I
soon began to feel at my ease.

The rooms gradually filled. Madame de Maubourg came in soon after her
sister, and, as I was talking to one of the young ladies, a gentleman
with a countenance not altogether unlike the General's, though nearly
bald, and with what was left of his hair perfectly gray, came up and
introduced himself to me as George Lafayette. It was the last link in
the chain. The last letter that my grandfather ever wrote to General
Lafayette had been about a project which they had formed at the close
of the war, to bring up their sons--"the two George Washingtons"
--together; and as soon after General Greene's death as the necessary
arrangement could be made, my poor uncle was sent to France and placed
under the General's care. It was of him that General Washington had
written to Colonel Wadsworth, "But should it turn out differently, and
Mrs. Greene, yourself, and Mr. Rutledge" (General Greene's executors)
"should think proper to intrust my namesake, G.W. Greene, to my care,
I will give him as good an education as this country (I mean North
America) will afford, and will bring him up to either of the genteel
professions that his friends may choose or his own inclination shall
lead him to pursue, at my own cost and charge." "He is a lively boy,"
wrote General Knox to Washington, on returning from putting him on board
the French packet, "and, wit