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Egyptian press that sometimes finds its way into the Sudan. Purvis had been told at once by his Sudanese officers, and had given the report the lie and calmed their apprehensions. All that remained for clearing up was that wire from the Intelligence, and Burke was momentarily expecting light on this subject, as the long-awaited post-boat had just arrived and the letters were even now being sorted. In a few moments Burke's mail was brought in by the postal orderly. Discarding even his home letters in his eagerness to see what Chesterfield Smith had to say, he picked up an official envelope marked "Strictly Confidential," opened it only to find a second labelled "Secret," and finally took out the letter itself. It ran as follows:

Egyptian officials, among them being Mansur Effendi and Ahmed Hamdi in your district. Pending inquiry it was thought prudent to put you on your guard, and similar telegrams were sent to several other British officers in out-stations.

"I may tell you confidentially that, with the single exception of yourself, all of them found reason to suspect the officers mentioned to them, and their suspicions have since proved groundless. I am permitted to tell you that your confidence in your officers has been much appreciated by the Sirdar, who considers that it points to a very satisfactory cooperation between you and them. You will be pleased to hear that he has selected you for the post of Senior Inspector in Kassala Province, and your promotion appears in this week's 'Gazette.' Allow me to be the first to congratulate you, and believe me, yours very sincerely,

"R. CHESTERFIELD-SMITH."

The letter dropped from Burke's fingers. He felt confused and weak, inclined to titter in the helpless way that comes during convalescence. A step sounded on the threshold, and Mansur, his face wreathed in obsequious smiles and a copy of the Gazette' in his hand, hastened forward.

"DEAR BURKE, -I gather from your reply to my cipher telegram that you have had no anxiety about the loyalty of your staff at Abu Zait. This is merely to say that we have since found out that the information leading to the warning sent you was quite unreliable. A clerk, dismissed from Government service as a result of accusations brought against him by some of his fellow employees, came to the Sirdar with a very complete account of a plot against the Government, which he substantiated with a number of documents, since proved to be forgeries. His story implicated many long!"

"Saatle Bey!" he cried, "Inshallah ashoofak Basha badein!" "Please God, I may see you a Pasha before S. LYLE.

THE WIFE OF BENEDICT ARNOLD.

BY MRS ANDREW LANG.

ENGLISH people are fre- his wife and daughter, it was

quently reproached by their Scottish friends with ignorance of and indifference to their own family history. Very probably I should have fallen under the same condemnation but for the thrilling discovery made in my childhood that two of the regicides, Mayne and Harrison, were to be numbered amongst my direct ancestors. The fact inspired me with some awe but no great indignation, Stuart partisanship only being awakened in me under stress of opposition; and I was far more interested in the tale told me a few years later of the wooing of Abby Willing, my grandmother's first cousin, by Louis Philippe in 1797. This was romance indeed, and from that day I felt a sort of personal property in the French crown (then worn by Napoleon III.), regardless of the circumstance that the sturdy good sense of Thomas Willing turned a deaf ear to the royal suitor. "No, sir! Poor and an exile, you are no fit match for my daughter; and were you to succeed to the throne of France, she would be no fit match for you." From this position nothing would move Thomas. Indeed, how was it possible for any man to give the lie to so neatly turned a peroration? Yet my old aunts loved to tell me that when fifty years later Louis Philippe fled to England with

a matter of common talk, amongst many who saw the exiled Queen, that Marie Amélie closely resembled the pictures taken in her girlhood of Abby Willing.

Still, even the episode of Louis Philippe paled in fascination before the dark tragedy of Benedict Arnold, familiar to me in the pages of Mrs Markham; for was not his wife, Peggy Shippen, a cousin of my own, although as I was English she seemed more remote than she would have done to a child on the other side of the Border. The Shippens, had I known it, figured in history long before Peggy's time, and were cultivated, academic, perhaps narrowminded Tories. Peggy's own ancestor, Edward Shippen, went over to Boston in 1688, shortly before William of Orange landed at Torbay, but he very soon moved to Philadelphia, where the family established themselves. Edward turned Quaker, grew rich, and ultimately was elected the first Mayor of his adopted town. Edward's nephew William remained in England and entered Parliament in 1707: from 1713 till his death in 1743 he represented the borough of Newton in Lancashire, and speedily earned the respect (though not the

imitation) of the House by his persistent refusal of bribes of any description. If we remember the almost universal practice of the age he lived in, when sinecures were considered the perquisite or the price of influence exerted by the dominant party, and the men who refused them could almost be counted on the fingers of one hand, it was no light praise to win the testimony of Walpole that "he would not say who was corrupted, but he would say who was not corruptible, and that man was Shippen." Political enemies though they were, the two mutually respected each other. "Robin and I are two honest men," Shippen once remarked. "He is for King George and I am for King James, but those men with long cravats only desire places either under King George or under King James." Yet Walpole had not always been so entirely for King George but that a few letters had passed between him and King James. So Shippen "Downright Shippen," as Pope calls himfollowed the example of Sir Thomas More, and declined "to pin his conscience to another man's back," and spoke out boldly when he beheld abuses that needed reforming. In 1718 he criticised the attitude of the King towards his kingdom and towards his Electorate and was sent to the Tower for his free speech, declining while in prison a "gift" of £1000 offered him by the Prince of Wales. This "gift" was most likely prompted more by the Prince's love of

opposition to his father than by approval of the sentiments uttered by Shippen.

Coxe gives an interesting account of Shippen's conduct respecting the motion made in Parliament in 1740 for turning out Sir Robert Walpole. The "incorruptible" member for Newton seems to have secured for himself adherents sufficient in number to be of importance in debate, and on their support he could count. On this occa

sion he probably discarded the glove which it was his custom to hold before his mouth, veiling his utterance, and when he rose from his seat to speak on the question, delivered his views with the energy and spirit too often drowned in the glove.

"He looked," he said, "on the motion as only a scheme for turning out one Minister and bringing in another, and as his conduct in Parliament had always been regulated with a view to the good of his country, it was quite indifferent to him who in and who was out, and he would give himself no further concern on the question." Then he withdrew, followed by thirtyfour friends and much abuse.

The secession of Shippen gave rise to much speculation, and the explanation was not furnished for some time. When it did appear it was this. Shippen the Jacobite had been a friend of Atterbury, with whom he had corresponded during the short time that rooms had been given to the Member for Newton at Holland House. He was also the friend

of a conspirator in one of the perpetual plots to bring back as James III. the exiled son of James II. The plot was discovered, and Shippen, who was not an active party to it, had gone to Walpole and implored the Minister to save this man, whose name we do not know. Sir Robert exerted his power and then sent for Shippen, and, in a speech quoted by Coxe, told the Jacobite that his friend was safe, but in return for his safety he, Walpole, had a request to make.

"I will not ask you," he said, "to vote with the Government, for I could not expect it, but if ever a question should be brought forward in the House personally affecting me, I hope you may remember the favour I have done you."

Socially, too, Shippen seems to have been a persona grata, and his wife, the co-heiress of Sir Richard Stote of North umberland, with £70,000 of her own, was much sought after by Queen Caroline. But Mrs Shippen was in her way as incorruptible as her husband in his. She did not care for Courts or fine people, and to the surprise of all her country and not a few of her town friends, preferred to live her own life, and rejected the Queen's advances with all the firm civility at her command.

Such were the English Shippens, who have now died out, and it is time to turn to the American branch, which is still flourishing. Peggy's father, Edward Shippen, had married

the granddaughter of Charles Willing, one of a family which, like the Shippens, had settled in Philadelphia. Edward Shippen's mother-in-law, Anne Willing, is of some interest also, from the fact that her husband was Tench Francis, the cousin of "Junius "—if indeed the gay and charming Sir Philip Francis was the author of the scurrilous Letters. We know nothing of her personally, and there is very little mention made of the Willing connection in the correspondence of Peggy with her father, so it is possible that though near of kin they were less than kind, or the two families may have differed in politics. For in the days when Peggy was eighteenthat is in the year 1778-Philadelphia was a very gay town, and most of the fashionable people took the side of the British troops quartered there. The most important city of America, its inhabitants were celebrated for their riches and their cultivated minds, as well as for the charm and grace of their women, and among these Peggy and her sisters Molly and Sally and Betty held the first place. The young English officers were frequently in and out of the house, and the most constant visitor of all was Major André. Which of the girls was the attraction? was 8 question whispered between their elders as they saw the conspicuous position assigned to the Major in all the revels which, strange to say in such a Royalist community, grew faster and more furious in proportion as the American

successes became more pro- leader. Third, that his troop nounced. The merry-making of actors was to be divided into

was at any rate the Swan Song of the British rule. On May 19 the sad news arrived that the English troops were to evacuate Philadelphia and the town was to be placed under the command of General Benedict Arnold, who had been nominated Military Governor. Consternation was painted on every female countenance. A wonderful soldier, of course! was it not he who had saved Fort Stanwix and practically gained the second battle of Saratoga, where one of his legs had been broken so badly? Every one knew that Washington looked on him as his right hand and inferior in military skill to nobody, but he was reported to be hard and stern-a lover of camps rather than of ballrooms. And the faces of the young ladies fell anew and life seemed barren till some one-perhaps it was André-suggested how delightful it would be to get up a tournament in honour of Sir William Howe, the English general, the day before the British troops marched out of the town. This proposal entirely changed the complexion of matters, and future partings were forgotten in the bustle of discussion over characters and clothes. "Who am I to be?" "What am I to wear?" resounded on all sides, but finally out of the confusion two or three facts emerged clearly. First, that the entertainment was to be known as the Mischienza." Second, that André was to be the

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two. Fourth, that the two sides were to be called respectively The Burning Mountain and The Blended Rose. Fifth, and most important of alleach knight was to have a device, a motto, and a LADY.

These preliminaries being settled, the arrangements went on apace. André headed the knights of The Blended Rose (it sounds like a perfume), who rode grey horses. His partner was, however, neither of the Shippen sisters but Miss Chew, with the motto "No Rival,” and his device two gamecocks fighting. Molly Shippen's partner was Lieutenant Sloper, also 8 Blended Rose, and Peggy's, one of the knights of The Burning Mountain, young Wynyard (was he the Wynyard of the ghost story?), who bestrode a strong black horse and wore a bay-leaf on his helmet. We are not told the name of the victor in the combats, or if there were many casualties; at any rate these cannot have been serious, for the tournament was followed by a ball, and the day's amusements closed with fireworks. It was a splendid wind-up to a gay season, and it was also the wind-up, though she did not know it, of Peggy's happy girlhood. The next morning the British marched out, and Arnold took up his abode in the mansion which Howe had occupied.

Like Peggy herself, Benedict Arnold came of a good English

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