At eleven every morning we were all in the saddle, and went off for a ride of some twenty miles, lunching at some fine house or other. It was English life to perfection, and most enjoyable. Hyde Park, with two superbly kept places, and its little village church on a Sunday, carried you back to England, and it seemed then to me that you there found the perfection of country life. It was whilst dining in one of these old baronial mansions, that I conceived the idea of transporting the whole party to my late father-in-law’s place at Madison, New Jersey, and giving them myself, in his old residence, another country entertainment. After inviting them, I began to realize what I had undertaken. The house itself was all one could wish, built of brick, and nearly as large as the White House in Washington. But it had been shut up and unoccupied for years; however, I was in for it and I resolved, in spite of all difficulties, to carry it through successfully. After a week at the Manor, our whole party of some dozen ladies and gentlemen mounted our horses, and rode down to New York, sending the servants ahead by rail, to engage apartments, have our rooms ready, and dinner prepared for us at the village inns where we were to sleep. It was amusing to see the gentlemen in dress coats and white cravats, and the ladies in their handsome toilets, sitting down in a village inn to ham and eggs and boiled chicken and cabbage; but, as we had always sent on the wine, and had the best of servants to look after everything, we enjoyed these inn dinners very much. Not a murmur from any of the ladies of any discomfort; they found everything charming and amusing. So day by day we rode, chatting away and enjoying each other’s society, and at night, after a cosy little meal, we were all only too glad to seek the arms of Morpheus. When I returned to my family at Newport and informed them of what I had done, that I had invited a dozen of the most _difficile_, fastidious people of Newport to pass ten days with us in New Jersey, at my brother-in-law’s then unoccupied and shut-up residence, there was but one exclamation, “You are crazy! How could you think of such a thing! How are you to care for all these people in that old deserted house?” All they said did not discourage me. I determined to show my friends that, though the Gibbons mansion was not a Manor house, it was deserving of the name, and was, at that date, one of the handsomest, largest, most substantial, and well-built residences at the North. When the Civil War broke out, my brother-in-law requested me to make it my home.