Next door, where there is now a big apartment house, used to be a large, double brick house, which was for many years the home of Abraham Herr, who with the Cissels conducted an important flour-milling business in Georgetown. His son, Austin Herr, was a fine figure of a man, and was, I think, a promoter. I distinctly remember as a little girl his return from a trip to China and the tales of all the treasures he had brought back with him--not so common then as now. At No. 1669, in the eighties lived one of the oddest characters--Mrs. Dall. She had come from Massachusetts many years before to teach at Miss English's Seminary. While there she received frequent visits from young Mr. Dall who was an assistant at Christ Church while finishing his course at the Episcopal Seminary near Alexandria. The gentleman stayed so late sometimes--probably until eleven o'clock--that Miss English had to ask him to mend his ways. The courtship resulted in a marriage, but before long the bridegroom went off to India as a missionary to convert the heathen. After some years the news came that, instead, he had been converted to Hinduism. At last he was coming home. It was in the spring and, of course, there had to be a spring cleaning, which took several days. One night about twelve o'clock, when the peace of the old-time world, minus the automobile and blaring radio, lay over old Georgetown, the clop-clop of horses' hoofs was heard coming up Congress Street, stopping in front of Mrs. Dall's. Then there was a great knocking on the door--a window was raised and a voice called: "Who is that?" "It's Henry." Came back from the wife: "Well, I'm in the midst of house-cleaning. Go on down to the Willard and stay until I send for you." A warm welcome, and one not approved of by the neighbors who had heard the conversation through their windows. Mrs. Dall was not very popular in Georgetown, it being overwhelmingly Southern in its sympathies and she being an abolitionist. I can dimly remember her padding down 31st Street, for so her progress might be called from the form of footwear she wore, it had no form--the queerest, high, shapeless boots. She wore a little close-fitting bonnet and a long, loose, grayish cape. She was a most particular person in some ways. A lady who lived there as a housekeeper said she was never allowed to leave her thimble on the window sill for a few moments; and it was well known that when a caller rang the front door bell the maid who answered had orders to scan the costume closely. If there was "bugle trimming" among its adornments the caller was shown into the parlor on the right side, where the furniture was all stuffed and no harm could be done, but if the clothes were devoid of the shiny, scratchy gear, she might safely be allowed to enter and sit upon the polished mahogany of the room on the left of the hall. She used to have a sort of salon for long-haired scientists and exponents of all sorts of "isms."