Touch of Magic

It's strange that Hannah Trent and Nancy Shippen should be such friends-Hannah, the quiet Quaker, daughter of the Shippens' seamstress, dreamer of dreams made of homespun; Nancy, landed gentry, child of caprice and privilege, a reigning beauty in damask and lace. And how differently too they are touched by what is happening in Philadelphia, by the commotion in all the Colonies set off at the signing of a paper on a fourth day of July!For Nancy, as for her glamorous older cousin Peggy Shippen, the Revolution means beautiful clothes, gay parties, dashing young officers whose hardest battles are those in pursuit of imperious little hands. To the belles, the protected darlings of the great families, the Revolution means the most brilliant social life the staid old Quaker town has seen.A life, Hannah discovers, in bitter contrast to the privations of more humble citizens, to the sick and wounded in Carpenter's Mansion, to the livid fear of patriots deserting the city, to the fever-bright eyes of the ragged Rebels at Valley Forge.For one whole morning at Valley Forge Hannah dares to hope that when the war is on Mark Allen will think of her as someone more than the girl who lives next door, back home in Elfreth's Alley. Mark is a spy for General Washington and uses Hannah to help him get information about activities of the British.When the war is over, happiness for the Shippen girls is ended too, as history of course records.Peggy, brightest of the bright butterflies whose every breath seemed to Hannah drawn in magic, is the wife of the traitorous Arnold, and Nancy, once so eager for love, is married to a man of wealth she loathes.Hannah's own fate is this book's secret alone, a story of adventure and romance that every girl will find as magical in turn as only the Cavanna touch can make it.