“It’s exactly like mine, cousin!” she said, not without a pout of disappointment. And so, in truth, it was, both being of bright, cherry corded silk, the only difference between them being that the modest round-necked bodice of my little cousin by no means could compete with the noble _décolleté_ of the older lady. But, in justice to the most estimable Mrs. Crittenden, it must be added that her neck and shoulders were superbly moulded, and, even in middle age, excited the envy of her less fortunate sisters. “Lady” Crittenden, as she was often called, accounted for her contentment in this wise: “I have been married three times, and in each alliance I have got just what I wanted. My first marriage was for love, and it was mine as fully as I could wish; my second for money, and Heaven was as good to me in this instance; my third was for position, and that, too, is mine. What more could I ask?” What more, indeed! [Illustration: MRS. J. J. CRITTENDEN of Kentucky ] One met dear old Mrs. Crittenden everywhere. She was of the most social disposition, a fact which sometimes aroused the good-natured irony of her distinguished husband. I remember an instance in which this was demonstrated, at the White House, which greatly amused me at the time. It was at a dinner party, and Senator Crittenden, who boasted that he had eaten at the White House table with every President since the days of Monroe, assumed the _blasé_ air which everyone who knew him recognised as a conscious affectation. “Now there’s ‘Lady’ Crittenden,” he began, nodding in the direction of that smiling personage, “in all the glory of a new and becoming gown, and perfectly happy in the glamour of this.” And he waved his hand about the room with an air of fatigue and, at the same time, a comprehensiveness that swept in every member, grave or giddy, in the large assemblage. “If I had my way,” and he sighed as he said it, “nothing would give me greater pleasure than to hie me back to the wilds of dear old Kentucky! Ah! to don my buckskins once more, shoulder a rifle, and wander through life a free man, away from all this flummery!” He sighed again (for the tangled woods?) as he detected a speck upon his faultless sleeve and fastidiously brushed it off! “Pshaw! Stuff and nonsense, Senator!” I retorted, rallying him heartlessly. “Fancy your being condemned to that! You wouldn’t stand it two days, unless an election were in progress and there were country constituents to interview. Everyone knows you are as fond of fat plums and plump capons, both real and metaphorical, as any man in the capital! As for society being disagreeable to you, with a good dinner in view and pretty women about you—Fie, Senator! I don’t believe you!” Whereat our Solon laughed guiltily, like one whose pet pretense has been discovered, and entered forthwith into the evening’s pleasures as heartily as did his spouse, the perfectly happy “Lady” Crittenden.