Angelica was busy in her aviary, close by. She was now twenty, and one
of the most beautiful girls in the country, but successive deaths had
kept her in seclusion; and the world in which her parents were such
familiar figures was to remember nothing of her but her tragedy. Betsey,
still as slim as her daughter, ran from the house at the familiar roar,
and Gouverneur Morris came dashing through the woods with a half-dozen
guests, self-invited for dinner. It was an animated day, and Hamilton
was the life of the company. He had no time for thought until night. His
wife retired early, with a headache; the boys had subsided even earlier.
At ten o'clock Angelica went to the piano, and Hamilton threw himself
into a long chair on the terrace and clasped his hands behind his head.
"So," he thought, "the end has come. My work is over, I suppose.
Personally, I am of no account. All I would have demanded, by way of
reward for services faithfully executed, was the health to make a decent
living and ten or fifteen years of peaceful and uninterrupted intimacy
with my family.
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