New Era in New York Society--Extravagance of Living--Grand Fancy Dress Ball in Fifth Avenue--I go as the Lover of Margaret de Valois--A great Journalist at Newport--A British Officer rides into a Club House--The great Journalist’s masked Ball--A mysterious Blue Domino--Breakfast at Southwick’s Grove to the Duke of Beaufort--Picnic given President Arthur--His hearty Enjoyment of it--Governor Morgan misjudges my “Open Air Lunches”--The Pleasure of Country Frolics, 349 CHAPTER XXVII. I visit Washington as the guest of Attorney-General Brewster--A Dinner at the White House--Amusing arrangement of Guests--The Winthrop Statue--The memorable Winters of 1884-85--A Millionaire’s House-warming--A London Ball in New York--A Modern Amy Robsart--Transforming Delmonico’s entire place into a Ball-room--The New Year’s Ball at the Metropolitan Opera House--Last Words, 367 MY FAMILY. SOCIETY AS I HAVE FOUND IT. CHAPTER I. _My Family--My Mother an Angel of Beauty and Charity--My Father’s Nobleness of Character--Building Bonfires on Paradise Rocks and Flying Kites from Purgatory with Uncle Sam Ward--My Brother the Soldier--My Brother the Lawyer._ In 1820 my mother, a beautiful girl of eighteen years, was introduced into New York society by her sister, Mrs. Samuel Ward, the wife of Samuel Ward, the banker, of the firm of Prime, Ward & King. She was a great belle in the days when Robert and Richard Ray and Prescott Hall were of the _jeunesse dorée_ of this city. In my opinion, she was the most beautiful, Murillo-like woman I have ever seen, and she was as good as she was beautiful;--an angel in works of charity and sympathy for her race. Charlotte Corday’s picture in the Louvre is a picture of my mother. The likeness arose from the fact that her family were descended on the maternal side from the Corday family of France. This also accounts for all my family being, from time immemorial, good Democrats. No one was too humble to be received and cared for and sympathized with by my mother. Her pastime was by the bedside of hospital patients, and in the schoolroom of her children. She followed the precepts of her mother’s great-grandfather, the Rev. Gabriel Marion (grandfather of Gen. Francis Marion) as expressed in his will to the following effect: “As to the poor, I have always treated them as my brethren. My dear family will, I know, follow my example.” It also contained this item: “I give her, my wife, my new carriage and horses, that she may visit her friends in comfort.” This ancestor came from Rochelle in a large ship chartered for the Carolinas by several wealthy Huguenot families. The Hugers and Trapiers and others came over in the same ship. He did not leave France empty-handed, for on his arrival in Carolina he bought a plantation on Goose Creek, near Charleston, where he was buried.