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XIV. THE WIFE OF BENEDICT ARNOLD. DURING the occupation of Philadelphia by the British in 1778, the Quaker city became the scene of unaccustomed festivities. Parties, theatricals, enter- tainments of all kinds, some given in honor of Lord Howe and his officers, the greater number originating with the officers themselves, followed each other in quick succession. Among those who figured most prominently in these gay scenes were two individuals who were destined not long afterward to be involved in a tragedy which brought upon one of them misery and disgrace, and consigned the other to death upon the gallows. These ill-starred persons were Major Andre* of the British army, and Miss Margaret Shippen, a young lady of the city in which that army was quartered. Major John Andrd was the son of a Swiss merchant, long settled in London, where he gained a considerable fortune. His mother, though of French parentage, was born in London. The native language, therefore, of both his parents, was French ; his name was French ; and there was in his character a spice of French sentiment and romance. He was French enough to think, for example, that to be an officer in an army is a thing more desirable, more honorable, and more becoming a man, than to serve his country as a man of business. Nevertheless, when he was a lad of seventeen, his father placed him in a counting-house, where he remained, plying the assiduous pen, till he was past twenty-one. (194)