Again the father left, and we next hear of the little girl as Madam Romero, wife of the once Secretary of State of Mexico and then Ambassador to the United States from Mexico. During the stay of Ambassador Romero at Washington, this girl of Virginia lineage became the leader of the social life of the Capitol of our Nation, and one of the most popular women ever known there. It was perfectly natural that Chester A. Arthur should be often a visitor to Fredericksburg for he married Miss Ellen Lewis Herndon, of this city, a daughter of Captain W. L. Herndon, whose distinguished life has been touched upon. The home in which President Arthur stopped on his visit is on Main Street, now occupied by Mrs. R. B. Buffington. Certainly the greatest orator who ever visited Fredericksburg was Edward Everett, of Massachusetts, distinguished among literary men of his day. He came to this city to speak and was entertained in several homes here. He afterwards spoke all over the Nation in an effort to aid the Mount Vernon Association to purchase Washington's home. An English officer Colonel Henderson, whose life of "Stonewall Jackson" is from a literary and military standpoint the best work of its nature in the world, came here and stayed for a long period securing data for his book. He lived during his time here at the Old Eagle Hotel, now the Hotel Maury. Among our old time merchants was Mr. William Allen. His son married and lived in many foreign lands. The son's wife died and he returned to visit his father bringing his beautiful little daughter, a child of ten or eleven years. The writer recalls her at that time, with her lovely golden curls. Another nobleman who came here drawn by the quaintness of the old American town and his desire to see the home of Washington, was the Count De Paris, of the French Royal Family. The Irish poet, Thomas Moore, was here once and declared he would not leave America until he had been a guest in an old Virginia home. _Where Beauty Blends_ _Old Gardens, at Old Mansions, Where Bloom Flowers from Long Ago_ Buds and blossoms everywhere! and honey-bees, butterflies and birds! It is Spring now in the lush meadows and sweeping hills about Fredericksburg. Flowers, leaves, shrubs and vines have burst forth once more with joy and life. The wild tangle of beauty and fragrance is everywhere perceptible; hedges of honeysuckle, whose hidden foundation is the crumbling old stone wall, trellises heavy with old-time roses, arbors redolent with sweet grapevine, sturdy oaks and maples, whose branches shelter the clinging tendrils and the purple wistaria blossoms, borders, gay with old-time favorites, heliotrope, portulaca, petunias, verbenas and hollyhocks, and the loved English ivy, with a welcome right of way wherever its fancy leads.