"Was he treated well in England, Papa?" asked Lulu.
"Not by every one," replied her father; "some of the noble-minded there showed him very plainly that they despised him for his treason. George III. introduced him to Earl Balcarras, who had been with Burgoyne at the battle of Bemis's Heights; but the earl refused his hand, and turned on his heel saying, 'I know General Arnold, and abominate traitors.'"
"How Arnold must have felt that!" exclaimed Rosie. "I would not have liked to be in his shoes."
"Nor I," said her mother. "The British officers thoroughly despised him, and there is an anecdote of a meeting he once had with Talleyrand which must have been trying to his feelings, if he had any sense of honour left.
"It seems that Talleyrand, who was fleeing from France during the revolution there, inquired at the hotel where he was at the time, for some American who could give him letters of introduction to persons of influence here. He was told that an American gentleman was in an adjoining room. It seems it was Arnold, though no one, I suppose, knew who he was. Talleyrand sought an interview with him, and made his request for letters of introduction, when Arnold at once retreated from the room, as he did so saying with a look of pain on his face, 'I was born in America, lived there till the prime of my life, but, alas! I can call no man in America my friend.'"
"I should feel sorry for him in spite of that black act of treason," Violet said, "if he had not followed it up by such infamous deeds against his countrymen, even those of them who had been his neighbours and friends in his early years. I remember Lossing tells us that while New Haven--set on fire by Arnold's band of Tories and Hessians--was burning, he stood in the belfry of a church watching the conflagration with probably the same kind of satisfaction that Nero felt in the destruction of Rome. Think of such a murderous expedition against the home and friends of his childhood and youth! the wanton destruction of a thriving town! It showed him to be a most malicious wretch, worthy of the scorn and contempt with which he was treated even by many of those who had profited by his treason."
"Yes; 'the way of transgressors is hard,'" quoted her mother.