Very splendid was the ball at the palace that night, and very splendid to George’s provincial eyes were the assemblies in the great Apollo Room at the Raleigh, where the wits and beaux and belles of the colonial court assembled. Sir John Peyton was not the only dandy to be met with there, although by far the most entertaining. There were many handsome and imposing matrons, but George saw none that his mother could not outshine in dignity and grace; and many beautiful girls, but none more charming than Betty. As communication with his home was easy and frequent, he could write long, descriptive letters to Ferry Farm as well as to Mount Vernon. Betty became so infatuated with George’s accounts of the fine people and gay doings at Williamsburg that she wrote George: “I wish, dear George, you would not write me any more about the routs and assemblies at Williamsburg, for your poor sister’s head is so full of junkets and capers and the like that she attends to her duties very ill, and drops stitches in her knitting, which brings her many reproofs, and plays nothing but jigs on the harpsichord, instead of those noble compositions of Mr. Handel, of which our mother is so fond.”