particularly upon the costume
of Emma Meredith, one of her guests and the daughter of Jonathan
Meredith of Baltimore, who came to Washington to attend the party. She
represented a rainbow and her appearance was so gorgeous that Mrs.
Kearny said the Heavenly vision seemed almost within the grasp of common
mortals. Miss Meredith's supremacy as a belle has never been eclipsed. I
recall a painful incident connected with her life. A young naval
officer was deeply in love with her and, it is said, was under the
impression that she intended to marry him. At a theater party one
evening he discovered his mistake and, taking the affair to heart,
returned to his quarters and the same evening swallowed a dose of
corrosive sublimate. Physicians were immediately summoned and, although
he regretted the act and expressed a desire to live, they were unable to
save him. It is said that about the same time Miss Meredith left her
home in Baltimore to visit her sister, Mrs. Gardiner G. Howland, whose
husband was one of the merchant princes of New York, and that, as she
crossed the Jersey City Ferry, one of the first objects which met her
eyes was the funeral cortege of her disappointed lover _en route_ to his
final resting place. Subsequent to this tragedy, I met Miss Meredith in
Saratoga, surrounded by the usual admiring throng. She never married. I
heard of her in recent years, at a summer resort near Baltimore, and,
although advanced in years, I understood she still possessed exceptional
powers of attraction. Only a short time ago I heard a young man remark
that he knew her very well and that he would rather converse with her
than with women many years her junior.

Mrs. Kearny was said to be the last of the "Lafayette girls." In 1825,
when Lafayette made his memorable visit to the United States as the
guest of the nation, she was living with her parents in Louisville, and
at the tender age of five strewed flowers in the pathway of the
distinguished Frenchman. She remembered the incident perfectly and in
our numerous conversations I have repeatedly heard her allude to it. She
told me that, seated at General Lafayette's side in the carriage which
conveyed him through the city, was the great-uncle, Colonel Richard C.
Anderson, who led the advance of the American troops at the Battle of
Trenton. General Robert Anderson, U.S.A., whose memory the country
honors as the defender of Fort Sumpter, was his son. The General's
widow, a daughter of G