CHAPTER XXII. NOTED WOMEN OF WASHINGTON—A CHAPTER OF GOSSIP. Quaint Habiliments—Portrait of a President’s Wife—A Travelling Lady—Life in Russia—A Model American Minister—A Long and Lonely Journey—When Napoleon Returned from Elba—The Court of St. James—“Mrs. Adams’ Ball”—Mr. John Agg’s Little “Poem”—Verses which Our Fathers Endured—Peculiar Waists—Costume of an Ancient _Belle_—Fearful and Wonderful Attire of a _Beau_—“A Suit of Steel”—“Smiling for the Presidency”—Attending Two Balls the Same Evening—An Ascendant Star—A Man who Hid his Feelings—The Candidate at a Cattle Show—“She Often Combed Your Head”—“I Suppose She Combs Yours Now”—Giving “Tone” to the Whole Country—A Circle of “Rare” Women—A “Perpetual Honor to Womanhood”—Charles’s Opinion of His Mother—How a Lady “Amused” Her Declining Days—Lafayette’s Visit to Washington—His Farewell to America—“A Species of Irregular Diary”—“For the Benefit of My Grandfather”—Mrs. Andrew Jackson—A Woman’s Influence—Politics and Piety Disagree—Why the General Didn’t Join the Church—A Head “Full of Politics”—Swearing Some—The President Becomes a Good Boy—Domestic Tendencies—His Greatest Loss—Sad News from the Hermitage. The portrait which Leslie gives us of Louisa Catharine Johnson, the wife of John Quincy Adams, reminds us in outline and costume of the Empress Josephine and the Court of the first Napoleon. She wears the scanty robe of the period, its sparse outline revealing the slender elegance of the figure, the low waist and short sleeves trimmed with lace and edged with pearls. One long glove is drawn nearly to the elbow, the other is held in the hand, which droops carelessly over the back of the chair. There is a necklace round the throat. From over one shoulder, and thrown over her lap, is a mantle of exquisite lace. The close bands of the hair, edged with a few deft curls, and fastened high at the back with a coronet comb, reveals the classic outline of the small head; the face is oval, the features delicate and vivacious; the eyes, looking far on, are beautiful in their clear, spiritual gaze. This is the portrait of a President’s wife, whose early advantages of society and culture far transcended those of almost any other woman of her time. The daughter of Joshua Johnson, of Maryland, she was born, educated and married in London. As a bride she went to the court of Berlin, to which her husband was appointed American Minister on the accession of his father to the Presidency. In 1801 she went to Boston, to dwell with her husband’s people, but very soon came to Washington as the wife of a senator. On the accession of Madison, leaving her two elder children with their grandparents, she took a third, not two years of age, and embarked with her husband for Russia, whither he went as United States Minister.