Pennsylvania Avenue, a colored attendant answered the door and after
glancing at his card informed him that it would be impossible to disturb
his master, as he was rehearsing before a looking-glass a speech which
he expected to deliver the following morning. Whether this was
originally told by a friend or foe of Mr. Sumner is not known. Mr.
Sumner once requested me to take him to see a young Washington belle who
combined Parisian grace with Kentucky dash. I refer to Miss Sally
Strother, an acknowledged beauty of decidedly Southern views, who lived
on Seventh Street near F Street, now a commercial center. Mr. Sumner and
I walked to her house from my home on G Street and found several guests
in her drawing-room, where the topic of conversation, in the course of
the evening, drifted to the subject of spiritualism. It was announced
that at a recent _seance_ the spirit of Washington had appeared and
uttered the usual platitudes, whereupon Miss Strother, without a
moment's hesitation, remarked: "I wonder what General Washington would
say about Mr. Sumner?" Someone undertook to define Washington's views,
but Miss Strother interrupted and said: "I know just what he would
say--that he was a very intelligent, a very handsome, but a very bad
man." This remark was naturally productive of much mirth, but failed to
arouse any manifestation of feeling or disapprobation on the part of Mr.
Sumner. Later, as we were walking homeward he remarked: "I have
_l'esprit d'escalier_ and my retorts do not come until I am well-nigh
down the flight of stairs." Sally Strother went abroad, where she
married Baron Fahnenberg of Belgium, and shared a fate similar to that
of many of her country-women, as she was finally separated from her
husband. She cherished, however, a pride of title and bequeathed $60,000
to erect in Spa, Belgium, a handsome chapel as well as a vault to
contain the remains of her mother, brother and herself. Her Kentucky
relatives, however, including the family of Mrs. Basil Duke, succeeded
in breaking the will on the ground that her mother's will, through which
she had inherited her property, did not permit it to leave the family.
The chapel and vault, accordingly, were not built, and all her property
reverted to her relatives.

In addition to his commanding presence, nature bestowed upon Mr. Sumner
a clear and melodious voice, which rendered it quite unnecessary for him
to resort to Demosthenic methods of cultivation. For many yea