With all its treasures of art, the chief ornament of the new home was Ann Van Ness, who completed her studies at a boarding-school in Philadelphia and returned to Washington about the time her parents took possession of it. Two years later she married Arthur Middleton, of South Carolina, the son of a signer of the Declaration of Independence, and probably that same Arthur Middleton, of whom Mrs. Edward Livingston made mention in a letter to her husband ten years later to the effect that his moustaches, whiskers, and velvet shirt were creating more of a sensation in New York than the quarrel between Jackson and Calhoun. Ann died within a year after her marriage. She was an only child, and to her mother life held nothing that could amend her loss. Thenceforth she withdrew from the sphere to which she had been since her early girlhood so great an ornament. She frequently sought the seclusion of the little cottage, and there, perhaps, lived over in memory the days that had known no shadow. She did not need the discipline of sorrow, which some natures require to sweeten them, but under its influence she rose to the loftiest heights of benevolence. Her pictured face reveals to us the beauty of her soul. The truth that speaks in her eyes, the spirituality of her brow, the tenderness of her mouth, combine to make the perfection of human character. The Washington City Orphan Asylum, which she founded and to which she devoted both time and means, is a fitting monument to her memory. She died on the 9th of September, 1832, and is the only woman who was ever honored with a public funeral in Washington. Through her charities she had become as widely known and as tenderly loved in the later years of her life as she had been in her youth through qualities not less endearing. The following tribute to her is by Horatio Greenough: "'Mid rank and wealth and worldly pride, From every snare she turned aside. She sought the low, the humble shed, Where gaunt disease and famine tread; And from that time, in youthful pride, She stood Van Ness's blooming bride, No day her blameless head o'er past But saw her dearer than the last." THEODOSIA BURR (MRS. JOSEPH ALSTON)