w Henry and Philemon Henry, brothers indeed in
all the wide and varied interests that go to make up brotherhood and not
a little human love. The bells of Christ Church, that had once been
taken down and hidden from vandal hands, were rehung, and rung at
intervals all day long, while flags floated and bonfires blazed at
night, and a grand supper was eaten by the dignitaries at Bush Hill.

While other and larger matters were being discussed, a President
nominated, elected, and inaugurated, Philadelphia, like a prudent
householder, was attending to her own affairs. When Washington passed
through the city on his way to New York to receive the grandest
compliment of the nation, she again paid him all honor in his reception.

The beautiful city with its greenery and quiet, of which William Penn
had dreamed, and in many of whose footsteps the renowned Franklin had
followed, had gone through curious changes, and was putting on new
aspects with every year. But "Fairemount," with its homes that were to
be handed down in story a hundred years later; Stenton, with its grand
aspects; Lansdowne, with its woods and waters; the Logan House, the
Shippens', and old Mount Pleasant, and so on stretching up the banks of
the Schuylkill were to be left beautiful and tranquil and free from the
thought of business invasion. For Old Philadelphia is like a dream, and
there will always linger about it the youthful tenderness of William
Penn's plan and his life story.

And then, to the chagrin of New York, came the transference of the
Capital to Philadelphia. She had perked up and brightened up, stretched
out her wharves, filled up her low places, cleared her streets of
rubbish, and built rows of houses, had her library and her university,
and it seemed as if she had been getting ready for this accession within
her borders, the "Republican Court," as it was to be called.

A plain enough house, on High Street, it was, with a few fine old trees
about, where many famous decisions were shaped by wisdom that seems
wonderful to us now. When Congress was in session there were many
gayeties, dinners, private balls, suppers, and dances for the young
people, and then, to its ruler, the retirement of Mount Vernon.

With it all a sort of serene steadiness and refinement that never
allowed pleasures to degenerate into a maddening whirl. A thrift and
prudence, too, that had become a solid, underlying strand in the
character of the city.

The bell still ran