was
accompanied to Washington by his two sisters, both of whom lived with
him in a fine residence on the corner of L Street and Connecticut
Avenue, which has since been torn down to make way for a large apartment
house. It was while the Cadwaladers were occupying this residence that I
first made the acquaintance of Dr. S. Weir Mitchell. Miss Mary
Cadwalader brought him to see us in our Corcoran Street home and during
the visit announced her engagement to him. He was then the highly
eminent physician alone, as he had not yet entered the arena of fiction
and poetry in which he has since attained such wide-spread distinction.
It gives me pleasure to add that he suggested to me, while I was
visiting in Philadelphia many years later, that I should write these
reminiscences.

All of the large balls and parties of this date, including the
bachelors' germans, which I frequently attended, were given at Lewis G.
Marini's on the south side of E Street, near Ninth Street. Marini was an
Italian and the dancing master of the day. Twice a week he went to
Annapolis to teach the midshipmen, who, when subsequently ordered to
duty in Washington, became very acceptable beaux, as they danced the
same step that their master had taught his pupils here. The bachelors'
germans were organized among others by Robert F. Stockton, Hamilton
Fish, Jr., John Davis, and Hamilton Perkins; while soon thereafter
Seaton Munroe became one of its officers. I especially recall a german
given by the bachelors at Marini's, on the twenty-second of February,
1876, when Lady Thornton, wife of Sir Edward Thornton, British Minister
to the United States, received the guests. The decorations were
unusually elaborate, consisting chiefly of American flags draped along
the walls from floor to ceiling; while at one end of the room, in
compliment to the hostess of the evening, the stars and stripes made way
to two British flags. A small cannon and a miniature ship were placed
below the music gallery, while above them was a semicircle of cutlasses
and a _chevaux-de-frise_ of glistening spears behind which were the
musicians. In an old scrap book I find a brief notice of this
entertainment which mentions the belles of the ball, some of whom became
matrons of a later day in Washington and elsewhere. This is the
list:--Miss Zeilin, Miss Dunn, Miss Kilbourn, Miss Emory, Miss Campbell,
Miss Kernan, Miss Dennison, Miss Keating of Philadelphia, Miss
Patterson, Miss Jewell, Miss B