Arizona silver belt., 1893-08-19
WASHINGTON WOMEN.
TWO WIDOWS Wl4o LEFT AN iMPRes-
 SION ON SOCIAL LIFE.

| Mrs. Madison was in high fashion dur. 1 lng her later years. Society has it's at lacks of this kind and takes up with as ! little reason as it puts down fayorite. But there came with this late burst of social warmth some good results into her gather chilled and necessitous life. For ' in that day it was positive loss of fortune | to have held any public position. Mrs. | Madison had in vain tried for years to effect a sale of Mir Madison's papers to i the government, and for want of this her means were very straitened. How 1t came about donot know, but it grew to be the correct and indispensable thing to call on Mrs Madison immediately on leaving the presidents levees.
 Her house was that diagonally oppo- site from Mir. Summers. There the best people met regularly, and yet no one could have said why. Mrs. Madison was once tho lady of tho White House" i She had had the quick thought to cut Washington's portrait by Stuart from i its frame and roll it carefully and carry ] 1t off in safety from the invading British | troops already burning Bladensburg She was always gracious and sweet man nered and, to her great credit, as much so in her days of changed fortunes as when she was surrounded by every aid to a placid state of mind. And yet this was about all that was said. And yet it was such an unwritten law that Mrs Madison must have what she wished that--just because of this mysterious do- cree of fashion--she actually got from congress what she had yainly petitioned for for years.
 Mir Buchanan stated one morning to | the senate that on such a day Mrs. Mad ison would Do such an age, and that the S20,000 asked for Mir, Madison's papers would come well to her as birthday present, and 1t was immediately voted to her To be sure it was for the writ ings of good patriot and statesman, and the woman toreceiYe it was of great age and it was in that far better than the vote for nearly the same amount for the cruel daub of good man and sol dier which was an evidence that emo tional legislation IS not yet extinct.
 But this made the occasion of a grand leyee for congratulating Mrs Madison and was among the last occasions on which she was seen in public. Her fine | iigure had outlastcd the threescore and ten years, and when well prepared for company, in her worn. old fashioned [ empire gown, her turban and clusters of artificial curls-just as we sec them in the portraits of Mime. dc Stael--the neck | and outlines of the face well shrouded in ! folds of tulle. she was still the handsome Mrs. Madison mn quite sure l never heard her called the widow of Madi- son
 But that was the prefix always made to the historical name of another woman of the same age, who also asked of con 1 gress the same favor shown to Mrs. Mad ison.
 This lady was small and always wore the widows dress sho had to assume in her early life. For over 90 years she did not vary this outward emblem of the solitude of her heart.
 She. too, like Mrs Madison, was amia- 1 ble and of charming manners, but she I turned from the world forever. when her i great husband fell in the duel with Burr, 1 and from that time, her own children first. and close to them in her interest ! the orphans of the poor. received all her attention Mrs, Hamilton was the chief founder of the Orphan Asylum of New 1 York She saw its fiftieth anniversary; she saw tho other charities that grew out of 1.-the Childrens Aid society is ono-and though her quiet life is ended her good works go on, and her family as well as her memory are living parts of them
 Mrs Hamilton was very small and i light of figure, Her dark, bright eyes ind white hair gave her marquise ef- feet and her widows dress gave the framing which suited her years and dname. 5he was very fond of young people and would tell us things-incidentally which made the early hardships and pen allies of the war for independence very real
 In speaking of travelling on horseback, she told us once how her mother and herself had to give that up for time and only go from Saratoga to Albany when a strong escort could guard them. 1t was after poor Jane McCrea had been killed by the Indians, and she made us such picture of the condition of the In. dians after the English enlisted them against us, that we "reali2edi' how far back lay the time when such a thing was | possible, and poor Jane McCrea" be- came a real girl in place of the bad little wood cut, with one Indian holding her long hair, and the other fiourishing his tomahawk as he kept his foot on the keg of whisky.
 They have passed completely away the handsome, gracious, society loving Mrs. Madison and the gentle 'widow of Alexander Hamilton" But Washington l $ the wrecking ground of great names. There are to be seen now, thankfully working for slender pay and tremblingly i anxious to keepit safe amid the changes in the departments, descendants of pres idents, chief justices, of secretaries of the treasury, of Jefferson, Franklin, and of others of later names-men who gave literally their all to their country, and l who deserved the praise Talleyrand gave of Hamilton, of whom he said: T have seen true public virtue. Ihave seen tho minister of finance, who gave wealth to his country, toiling through the late hours of the night to gain q support for his young family Mrs. Jessie B. Ere mont in New York Ledger.