“No matter how this was sung, the words alone were the man-traps; the belle of the evening was declared to be just like both, and the people looked around as if the listener was expected to become on the instant very tender, and to propose.... Between the young ladies, who generally not only good looking, but good tempered, and if not well informed, capable of becoming so, and the ladies of a certain time of life, there is usually a wide gap in society, young married women being but seldom seen in the world; as they approach, however, to middle age, they are apt to become romantic, those in particular who live in the country and have read novels fancying all manner of romantic things, and returning to the Capital determined to have an adventure before they again retire; or on doing some wondrous act which shall make them be talked about in all after time. Others I have known to contract an aversion to water, and as a substitute, cover their faces and bosoms with hair powder, in order to render the skin pure and delicate. This was peculiarly the case with some Virginia damsels, who came to the halls at Washington, and who in consequence were hardly less tolerable than negroes. There were but few cases of this I must confess, though as regards the use of the powder, they were not so uncommon, and at my balls I thought it advisable to put on the tables of the toilette room not only rouge, but hair powder, as well as blue powder, which had some customers.... “In going to assemblies one had sometimes to drive three or four miles within the city bounds, and very often at the great risk of an overthrow, or of being what is termed ‘stalled,’ or stuck in the mud.... Cards were a great resource during the evening, and gaming was all the fashion, at brag especially, for the men who frequented society were chiefly from Virginia or the Western States, and were very fond of this the worst gambling of all games, as being one of countenance as well as of cards. Loo was the innocent diversion of the ladies, who when they looed pronounced the word in a very mincing manner.... “Church service can certainly never be called an amusement; but from the variety of persons who are allowed to preach in the House of Representatives, there was doubtless some alloy of curiosity in the motives which led one to go there. Though the regular Chaplain was a Presbyterian, sometimes a Methodist, a minister of the Church of England, or a Quaker, or sometimes even a woman took the speaker’s chair; and I don’t think that there was much devotion among the majority. The New Englanders, generally speaking, are very religious; though there are many exceptions, I cannot say so much for the Marylanders, and still less for the Virginians.”