When I was a very good little girl, I was allowed to read Mrs. Sherwood’s Lady of the Manor, on Sunday. I read, and thought that heaven on earth must be shut up in a manor house. When I grew to be a somewhat bigger girl, sailing down the Hudson, a manor house, rich in historic recollections, was pointed out to me. And here, in my summer-time, comes the lady of this manor house, drops her gentle courtesy, and gives me her hand, making more than real the enchanted story of childhood. The lady of the manor in crude Washington revives the stately graces of old days. How quaint and rare they are! How I look and long for it; how glad I am when I find it,—that indefinable, yet ever-felt presence of fine womanliness, a thing as precious as the highest manliness,—each the rarest efflovescence of human nature. I confess to a clinging adoration for it, whether felt in the lady of the manor or in the sad-eyed woman who cleans my gloves. The womanliness that is not ashamed nor dissatisfied with womanhood, nor yet vain of it; the womanliness that gives us the gracious, blending dignity and sweetness of wisdom and humility, of self-respect and reticence, of spirituality and tenderness—that ineffable charm of femininity, which is the counterpart and crown of manhood, in very distinction equal with it, each together maintaining in equilibrium the brain and soul of the human race. Even while I write word comes: The lady of the manor is dead. The quaint hood, the stately grace, the winning smile we shall see no more. All have gone into the darkness of death. And who was the lady of the manor, who for three winters in Washington has been the observed and admired of all who met her in the circles of society? She was Cora Livingston Barton, the reigning _belle_ of Jackson’s administration. She was the daughter of Edward Livingston, who served his country as Member of Congress and Senator from Louisiana, as Secretary of State during Jackson’s administration, and as United States Minister to France. Her father was as distinguished for goodness as he was for noble intellect and exalted public service, and her mother was one of the most remarkable women who ever graced the National Capital. She was a social queen of the rarest endowments. She was the chosen friend and dear counsellor of two persons as opposite in nature and temperament as General Jackson and Mrs. John Quincy Adams. She was a very queen of entertainers, as the wife of the Secretary of State, entertaining foreigners and Americans and political foes, with an ease, elegance and fascination of manner, which annihilated alike all prejudice and animosity. She was a classical scholar, familiar with the best ancient and modern thoughts. The chosen counsellor of her husband in the gravest affairs of State,—a self-abnegating mother,—a devout Methodist, she having chosen that communion as her own on account of the simplicity and fervor of its mode of worship.