Miller's house, they read the chalk advertisement, broke out into a hearty laugh at this sample of uncourtliness in a man whose eccen-tricities were known to all, and then pushed home, in great glee, for their own tables. The day before the battle, by General Lee's advice, Mrs. Miller removed a short distance to the interior, taking with her, her family, and some necessary furniture. She left for the use of her military guest, while she herself should be absent, her best bed; the linen checked curtains of which were wholly made by her daughter Sarah, afterward Mrs. Mott, and mother-in-law to a well known merchant of New

BATTLE OF WHITEPLAINS, ETC. 65 York, the late John Franklin. These hangings were the hand-somest specimens of domestic manufacture that the neigh-borhood afforded. Both mother and daughter were pro-portionally proud of them. Mrs. Miller returned to her domicile on the next day after the enemy retired from White-plains, and among many missing articles, were the curtains in question. They no longer hung over the bed to which they belonged. The daughter, alarmed for their safety, long searched the house in vain. At length, in some remote chamber, she found a tailor, shears in hand, upon the floor, in the very act of cutting up her handywork in order to form it into the lining of a military cloak he was about making for General Lee. The tailor refused to give up so important a part of his material, and the general himself on being ap-pealed to, showed at first a strong inclination to hold on. However, after a while, but with a bad grace, he resigned the curtains into the hands of their fair manufacturess. The late General Philip Van Courtland used to tell a story of General Lee, which exhibited at the same time, the peculiar humor of the man, and the poverty of his wardrobe.