The age-herald., 1900-07-22

ison had been openly tilted by Catherine Floyd, to whom he had become engaged while in the Continental Congress and still the gossips chatted of the blow, which he made little effort to conceal. When he be- held the future Mrs Madison, he probably agreed with hIs friend, Thomas Jefferson, who in lamenting the conduct of Gather inc Floyd, suggested to Madison that the world presented the same and many other resources of happiness for his second woo- ing was most ardent.
 Mrs. Madison's life in the White House, when she was indeed the heart of the na- tion, was so full of historica incidents that with the exception of Mrs. Cleveland, there has been no lady of the White House who impressed her personality upon the na- tion so strongly es did Dolly Madison. It was said that at the official receptions she had the happy faculty of remembering names and faces and when on one oc- casion Henry Clay said that Everybody loves Mrs. Madison" she replied, Mrs. Madison loves everybody" In a buff-colored velvet and pearls, with turban of paradise plumes, she graced the inaugural ball, and while she never danced, she held at all of ficial functions a court of all the celebrities that made Washington the social mecca of the day. During the with England Mrs. Madison was as able a helper as she was in times of peace. The determination on the part of Mrs. Madison to save the portrait of General Washington that hung in the White House was recalled, and when she found that she must flee for her own life, she ordered the massive frame knocked to pieces, that the canvas might be conveyed in safety; while all the world knows that Dolly Madison saved the Dec laration of Independence. In her flight from Washington some one exclaimed that the country was gone, but Mrs. Madison ex- claimed that she had the constitution When the news of a famous naval vic- tory brought to the White House, a grand tall was being given al the time in honor of the navy. At this ball the English colors, borne aloft by Captain Hull of the II. s. Frigate, were carried the length of the ballroom and laid at the feet of Dolly Madison. While her official life in Washing ton was made up of a series of social con- quests, her later years at Montpelier are full of historic interest, since there she and Pres. Madison entertained the chivalry and aristocracy of the country. There MT Madison, in black coat, knee brooches, and powdered hair, has been pictured by his torians, taking his constitutional on the rose-covered balcony. By his side the idol of the nation" must have strolled, recalling her brilliant past. The favored balcony looked out upon a garden of tiger lilies, the seed having been brought from France by lafayette, and it was from this balcony we are told that Mrs. Madison enjoyed an interior view of Montpelier, with it's rich furnishings, among which was a crimson damask canopied bed, brought from the palace of the Tuilleries after the French revolution In the dining room there were portraits of Napoleon, Louis XIV, and Thomas Jefferson, painted by Kosciursko, and there, too, were the massive mahog- any sideboards, and tables glistening with silver and in this stately apartment, in which Dolly Madison was the brilliant cen ter of a gay and courtly throng. the rich old mahogany table now owned by Mrs. Wilkinson, once felt the touch of the fair, bejeweled hands of the most famous lady of the White House."
 Another interesting piece of furniture in Mrs. Wlkinson's dining-room is a hand some, dark mahogany buffet table, once owned by her fathers great uncle, Judge Philip P. Barbour, who was a contempor- ary of Madison, and for years United States supreme court justice and speaker of the