In the vicinity of one of Richmond's fashionable schools there was often seen on winter afternoons, in the late sixties, a group of young girls, who possessed far more than the usual attractiveness that belongs ever to health and youth. Two, at least, Lizzie Cabell and Mary Triplett, were singularly beautiful. The third, a tall, slender girl, with a trim figure, dark skin and hair, and eyes perhaps downcast as she stepped lightly along listening to her companions, a stranger would scarcely have observed. If, perchance, however, as they paused on a street corner for a last word before separating, the downcast eyes were lifted, there gazed from out their soft depths a spirit that transformed the entire face. They were truly the windows of a soul, looking out upon the world with a frankness that was irresistible, and with a certain caressing fondness for life that begot a kindred glow in all it looked upon. In her sweet voice there was the same tone of caress as it gave a parting utterance to some flashing thought to which, likely as not, she paid the tribute of that honest smile, whose witchery still lingers in many minds. As she continued her walk homeward many lifted hats greeted her passing, many eyes followed her, and her name was murmured among many groups, for, young as she was, Mattie Ould was already wandering in the pathway of a fame that was to make her later the idol of the people of the South. Before she was beyond the tutelage of her old mammy the piquancy of her wit had established her title to popularity. It had, moreover, much of that audacity that had characterized the wit of another Virginia belle, Ann Carmichael, of Fredericksburg, who flourished fifty years earlier in the century. Conventionality was a term with which Mattie Ould had no concern. She was a genius, and with a spontaneity that was overwhelming she dared to give utterance to every sparkling thought that crossed her mind. She was a very small girl when she made that bright sally which connects her name with that of her father's friend, General Young. A famous _raconteur_ and _bon vivant_, and revelling in her gift for repartee, her father frequently had her brought forward as a little child to grace his stag dinners, seating her in the centre of the table, whence she sent forth such sallies of wit as captivated many a veteran dinner-giver and guest.