Accompanying her that evening to the humble home provided for her by a distant relative, she remarked, "I have seen the time, sir, when I could have invited you to an elegant home." She then said that when Major Eaton died, he left for her an ample fortune but that some years later she unfortunately married a man younger than herself, who succeeded in getting her property into his hands and then cruelly deserted her. Fiction indeed seems commonplace when contrasted with the story of real life such as this now penniless and forgotten woman had known. Once surrounded by all that wealth could give, herself one of the most beautiful and accomplished of women, her husband the incumbent of exalted official position,--now, wealth, beauty, and position vanished; the grave hiding all she loved; sitting in silence and desolation, the memories of the long past almost her sole companions. When in the tide of time has there been truer realization of the words of the great bard-- "The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, Good and ill together?" X THE CODE OF HONOR BLADENSBURG, A PLACE NOTORIOUS FOR DUELS--FRANKLIN'S OPINION OF DUELLING--NOTABLE MEN WHO FELL IN DUELS--FATAL DUEL BETWEEN COMMODORES BARRON AND DECATUR--THE LAST DUEL FOUGHT AT BLADENSBURG--ITS CAUSE A MERE PUNCTILIO--THE WRITER'S INTERVIEW WITH ONE OF THE SECONDS-- A DUEL IN REVOLUTION DAYS--GEORGE WASHINGTON DISSUADES GEN. GREENE FROM ACCEPTING A CHALLENGE--GEN. CONWAY, FOR CONSPIRING AGAINST WASHINGTON, WOUNDED BY COL. CADWALLADER--GEN. CHARLES LEE, ANOTHER CONSPIRATOR, WOUNDED BY COL. LAURENS--DUEL BETWEEN CLINTON, "THE FATHER OF THE ERIE CANAL," AND MR. SWARTOUT--THREE NOTABLE REPLIES TO CHALLENGES--THE FATAL DUEL BETWEEN HAMILTON AND BURR --UNHAPPINESS OF BURR'S OLD AGE--DUEL BETWEEN SENATOR BRODERICK AND JUDGE TERRY--A HARMLESS DUEL BETWEEN SENATOR GWIN AND MR. McCORKLE--A MURDER UNDER THE GUISE OF A DUEL--DUELLING BY ILLINOISANS --LINCOLN'S INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE PRELIMINARIES OF HIS DUEL WITH SENATOR SHIELDS. The very name "Bladensburg" is suggestive of pistol and bullet, savors indeed of human blood. It is associated with tragic events that during successive generations stirred emotions of indignation and horror that have not yet wholly died out from the memories of men. As the words "Baden-Baden" and "Monte Carlo" bring before us the gambler "steeped in the colors of his trade," so the mere mention of Bladensburg calls to mind the duellist, pistol in hand, standing in front of his slain antagonist.