MOUNT PLEASANT, ON THE SCHUYLKILL. THE RIVER FRONT

Built by Captain James Macpherson, 1761. Sometime the home of General Benedict Arnold

ington and his gigantic treachery in asking an important command that he might betray it, but historic justice compels us to "give the devil his due " and admit that he had much provocation for the discontent and resentment that he allowed to lead him at last to the blackness of villainy.

After Arnold's attainder and the confiscation of his property, Mount Pleasant was leased to Baron Steuben, but it is doubtful whether he ever lived there, as his duties took him to the South at that very time, and when he returned thence the estate had another tenant. Passing through several hands, the property eventually came to General Jonathan Williams, of Boston, the Revolutionary worthy, who remained there and his family after him till the middle of the nineteenth century, shortly after which period Mount Pleasant and all the surrounding estates were acquired by the city and made a part of Fairmount Park.

Knowing thus a little of its history, the interior of the house, where personal memories seem to cling more persistently, can be better appreciated. A spacious hallway as wide as a room runs through the house from east to west. In summer, if the doors at the ends are open, delightful prospects open up in either direction. The detail of classic ornament on cornice, pilaster, and doortrims is wonderfully rich and remarkably well preserved. To the north of the hall is the great drawing-room running the full depth of the building, with windows looking both east and west. In the middle of the north side is a full-throated fireplace above which is an elaborately wrought overmantel, in whose central panel one instinc

tively feels that a canvas from the brush of Gainsborough or Kneller ought to hang. The door-frames, with their heavily moulded pediments, are exceptional. In fact all the woodwork both downstairs and up is richer in elaboration of detail than is usual in our Colonial Georgian. East of the dining-room is an ell extension from the hall and there a wide, easy staircase with a balustrade of gracefully turned spindles ascends to the second floor.

From the moment you cross the threshold, fancy peoples the rooms with a shadowy throng of those that once dwelt there or came beneath the hospitable roof when some festive occasion drew them from the city or the neighbouring seats. There stands the old captain in a cocked hat, his armless sleeve hanging limp at his side; here a courtly personage in satin breeches, velvet coat, and powdered periwig treads a measure with a dame arrayed in flowered brocade, who nods the plumes of her turban coquettishly at her partner in the minuet; there goes the gallant Spanish Don in a resplendent uniform and close behind him follows a martial figure in whose dour comeliness can be recognised the betrayer of his country's trust. All these and many more, not forgetting the ebony-faced and liveried lackeys, discover their presence to our fleeting glimpses and only disappear entirely when we look directly at them to be assured of their reality. They all form a part of this old house, intangible and elusive, to be sure, but none the less real.

These personal memories inwoven with material fabric, like all-permeating ether, are the very soul of the charm we feel in old buildings. At Mount Pleasant, how