But my oldest and dearest mess-mate during nearly a decade in the capital was, as I have said elsewhere, Mrs. Fitzpatrick, whose husband, Senator Benjamin Fitzpatrick, was President of the Senate for four consecutive sessions. Senator Fitzpatrick was very many years older than his wife, having, indeed, held office in 1818, when Alabama was a territory, and when few of his Alabamian associates in Congress had been ushered upon the stage of life. Between Mrs. Fitzpatrick and me there was an undeviating attachment which was a source of wonder, as it doubtless was rare, among women in fashionable life. As confrères in the Senate, our husbands, despite the disparity in their years, were fully in accord; and a more congenial quartette it would have been hard to find. I think of all the harmonious couples I have known, Senator and Mrs. Fitzpatrick easily led, though near to them I must place General and Mrs. McQueen. It was a standing topic in Brown’s Hotel, the devotion of the two middle-aged gentlemen—Messrs. Fitzpatrick and McQueen—to their young wives and to their boys, _enfants terribles_, both of them of a most emphatic type. “The Heavenly Twins” as a title had not yet been evolved, or these two young autocrats of the hostelry would surely have won it from the sarcastic. Benny Fitzpatrick was at once the idol of his parents and the terror of the hotel; and, as Mrs. Fitzpatrick and I were cordially united in other interests of life, so we shared the maternal duties as became two devoted sisters, “Our boy Benny” receiving the motherly oversight of whichsoever of us happened to be near him when occasion arose for aid or admonition. “Mrs. Fitz” delivered her rebukes with “Oh, Benny dear! How could you!” but I, his foster-mother, was constrained to resort betimes to a certain old-fashioned punishment usually administered with the broadside of a slipper, or, what shortly became as efficacious, a threat to do so. Benny, like George Washington, was the possessor of a little hatchet, with which he worked a dreadful havoc. He chopped at the rosewood furniture of his mother’s drawing-room, while his proud parents, amazed at his precocity, not to say prowess, stood by awestruck, and—paid the bill! The child was plump and healthy, and boys will be boys! Thus were we all become his subjects; thus he overran Hannah, his coloured nurse, until one day Pat came—, Pat Dolan. Pat had been a page at the Senate, and in some forgotten way he and little Benny had become inseparable friends. Thereafter, Benny was taken by his fond guardian, into whose hands his three anxious parents consented to consign him, to see the varying sights and the various quarters of the city. As his experiences multiplied, so his reputation for precocity increased in exact ratio.