The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1895-04-08

wave of English society: Miss Minnie Stew
ems was hailed as the most beautiful girl
Mrs. Stevens was welcomed so royalty
that she made it her custom to spend the
Stevens continued 10 be a reigning belle OF
the English capital. She was regarded as a
prliiiant match. and It was said by every
she might choose. But she was a girl of
as sterling sense as her mother, and she
fell in love with and was welded TO the
Hon. Arthur Paget. 1t was a grand mar
rage. Her husband, who has since been
made a knight; was the closest friend Of
With her New York and Newport estab-
Ishments, and her daughter moving in the
most exclusive circles of English society,
Mrs: Stevens now divided her time between
England and America. Her houses here be-
of young English lords. In order TO avoid
the cares of her estate, Mrs. Stevens ap-
p puard;an tn for ia her A abiIdre1 Lea s,ya trustee tbTaw h and
self heartily into the pleasures of life. Her
name headed the list of all charitable enter
prises. Her gowns, her entertainments, her
eQuipages, were recounted as those of a
very exalted parsonage
success that the note of sorrow was again
sounded. Her son Harry, on whom she
heart. died. He ms had BEEN sent to r Oxford
and trained in all the manly sports and ele-
gances of the day. He was a fine fellow in
every sense OF the word, and his loss nearly
broke the mothers heart.
After the period of mourning was over
MIS-. stevens again entered .EW 40rk So
ciety, but not with the same purpose and
ambition as before. She threw open her
house and went through the outward visible
signs of a life of fashionable pleasure, but
those who knew her best saw that her
heart was no longer in it.
1t was now, too, that the lawyers began
to harass the lonely woman, and at last,
to cap the climax, her old friend and adj
wiser, Arthur Leary, died.
HER MANY LAWSUITS.
Mrs. Stevens many law suits have been
written of i'm all veins from hIImOT tn
grave earnest. Her chef has sued her;
her grocer at Newport sued her; she was
sued and declared by the court as not a
faithful executrix of her husbands es-
tate; while she was at her mothers
funeral in Lowell in October of 1892 her
horses at Newport were seized by a trades
man; she sued Miss Anna Leary after the
death of Arthur Leary, for an account
ing of her estate, that had become sadly
mixed up with the personal estate of the
dead society man; ex-Congressman John f.
Adams sued her for $4,000, as counsel fees
in a $1,000, 900 suit that he won for her,
which fees she had refused to pay on the
ground that they were exorbitant; she had
her butler arraigned. for stealing some ola
worth it's weight in gold, and she unsuc-
c~essfully attempted to have her brother-in>
law, Charles G.: Stevens, and her son-in-
law, John l.. Melcher, removed as cock
ecutors of her husbands estate, claiming
that Melcher was an inveterate gambler.
1t was almost two years ago when Mrs.
Stevens found business encroaching upon
her old Stevens mansion so impudently
rnad sne DECIDED 10 aoannon IL ana move
Fifth avenue and Fifty-fffth street, known
as the Mason-Jones mansion. Her first
function in that grand house was her dins
Dunrayen, at which the Earl was not pres
ent, because his boat had been becalmed
far out at sea. The house is directly across
the avenue from the mansions OF Cornelius
Vanderbilt and Coils P. Huntington.