XXXV. PEG O'NEAL. SIXTY years ago, there used to be in Washington a spacious tavern in the old-fashioned Southern style, kept by William O'Neal, who had lived in the neighbor- hood before the capital was built on the shores of the Potomac. This landlord had a pretty daughter named Peg, who was the pet of the house from babyhood to womanhood. She was somewhat free and easy in her manners, as girls are apt to he who grow up in such cir- cumstances ; and it did not immediately occur to her that a young lady of twenty cannot behave with quite the free- dom of a girl of twelve, without exciting ill-natured remark. Among the boarders of this old tavern, whenever he came to Washington, was General Andrew Jackson, of Tennessee, who had known the landlord in the olden time when he used to pass through that region on his way from Nashville to his seat in Congress at Philadelphia. Mrs. Jackson, also, occasionally accompanied the general to the seat of government, where she became warmly attached both to Mrs. O'Neal and to her daughter, Peg. The general nowhere in Washington felt himself so much at home as in this old tavern. No one could make him and his plain, fat little wife so comfortable as Mrs. O'Neal, and no one could fill the general's corn-cob pipe more acceptably than the lively and beautiful Peg. In due time, Peg O'Neal, as she was universally called, became the wife of a purser in the navy, named Timber- (423)
