One evening, when she had kept up her amusing prattle until a later hour than usual, she went up to General Young, who was seated near her father, and stood beside him, resting her head against his shoulder. "Come, come," called her father, "it's time mammy was hunting you up, little sleepy head. General Young can't get on very well with you there." "No, no," insisted Mattie, dreading a summons of that autocrat, in whose presence there could be neither pleading nor protest; "don't send for mammy. I'm not sleepy. I was just trying an old head on young shoulders." She was quoted through all grades of Richmond life, and long before she had grown to womanhood a frequent question on many lips was, "Have you heard what Mattie Ould said?" Then every one listened to her latest _bon mot_, which was repeated till the whole city had heard and laughed. With a dash and _esprit_ that were peculiarly her own, she had many masculine traits, an independence and a _camaraderie_ that were irresistible. [Illustration: Mattie Ould (Mrs. Oliver Schoolcraft) From photograph by George S. Cook] With the magnetism of her gifts she would have been known to fame even had her family been of less prominence. Well placed, however, as she was in life, her brilliancy illumined a vast horizon. Her father, Judge Robert Ould, always held a distinguished position, both in the District of Columbia, where he was born, and in Richmond, whither he removed at the outbreak of the war. Besides being thrown in intimate contact with the prominent citizens of both places, he was frequently called upon to extend his hospitality to eminent strangers who came to him with letters of introduction. His home during part of his residence in Washington was in the quaint old building opposite the Treasury Department, now Riggs Bank. There President Buchanan was his guest for several days after he quitted the White House. No extraordinary preparations, however, were made for the entertainment of the ex-President in a household where distinguished guests were a frequent occurrence. A loose rod in the stair-carpet was secured on the suggestion of Mrs. Ould's mother, lest Mr. Buchanan, not accustomed to the circumnavigation that it had imposed upon the family, should fall and break his leg, in which event they would have him three weeks instead of three days. Judge Ould came prominently before the public as the district attorney at the time of the prosecution of General Daniel Sickles for the killing of Barton Key, Sickles being defended by Edwin M. Stanton, who became more widely known later as Lincoln's Secretary of War.