One night when Rev. William Martin's family were asleep, there came a knocking at the door. Miss Isabella Martin answered. Maum Letty stood outside weeping: "Miss Isabella, Robert's (her son) been killed. He went to a party at General Nash's an' dee all got to fightin'. I come to ax you to let me bring 'im here." Permission was given. A stream of negroes flowed in and out of the basement rooms where the dead was laid. And it was, "The General says this," "The General says that." Presently the General came. "Good morning, Beverly," said Miss Martin. "Good morning, Miss Isabella;" he had been a butler and had nice manners. "This is a sad business, Beverly." "Yes, Miss Isabella. It happened at my house, but I am not responsible. There was a party there; all got to fighting--you know how coloured people will do--and this happened." It is law for the coroner to see a corpse, where death has occurred from violence, before any removal or change is made. The coroner did not see Robert until noon. General Nash had gotten the body out of his house quickly as possible. Belles of Columbia were Misses Rollins, mulattoes or quadroons. Their drawing-room was called "Republican Headquarters." Thick carpets covered floors; handsome cabinets held costly bric-a-brac; a $1,000 piano stood in a corner; legislative documents bound in morocco reposed with big albums on expensive tables. Jewelers' and other shops poured treasures at Misses Rollins' feet. In their salon, mingling white and dusky statesmen wove the destinies of the old Commonwealth. Coloured courtezans swept into furniture emporiums, silk trains rustling in their wake, and gave orders for "committee rooms"; rode in fine carriages through the streets, stopped in front of this or that store; bareheaded white salesmen ran out to show goods or jewels. Judge M. (who went over to the Radicals for the loaves and fishes and ever afterward despised himself) was in Washington with a Black and Tan Committee, got drunk, and for a joke took a yellow demi-mondaine, a State official's wife, on his arm and carried her up to President and Mrs. Grant and introduced her at a Presidential reception. Black Speaker Elliott said ("Cincinnati Commercial," Sept. 6, 1876): "If Chamberlain is nominated, I shall vote for Hampton." A member of the Chamberlain Legislature tells me this is how the Chamberlain-Elliot split began. Mrs. Chamberlain was a beautiful woman, a perfect type of high-born, high-bred, Anglo-Saxon loveliness, noble in bearing, lily-like in fairness. She brought a Northern Governor, his wife, and other guests to the State House. They were standing near my informant in the "white part" of the House, when Elliott, black, thick-lipped, sprang down from the Speaker's chair, came forward and asked a gentleman in attendance for introduction. This gentleman spoke to Alice Chamberlain. The lily-white lady lifted her eyes toward Elliott, shivered slightly, and said: "No!" Elliott did not forgive that.