A very fine lady was our aunt, MRS. JAMES MADISON. That is very manifest by even a casual glance at her carefully arranged head-gear, her elaborately disposed hair, her effectively adjusted shawl, her well-studied laces and thoughtfully selected jewelry, collars, cuffs, and gloves. A little too fine, perhaps, to be cordially loved. A young modest person would, in spite of her assuring ease of manner, feel respectfully uneasy in her presence; but so respectable, so highly respectable she was, and still shows in her portrait, that we are all very proud of her. If she was exacting, she gave in return and to all equal measures of refined courtesy and attention. She was very elegant in her manners, but she was patronizing. Very impressive with her grand airs, but still patronizing. She lit up the White House with the radiance of cultivated beauty, the refinements of courtly ease and high-bred manner, but still was she patronizing. She had gone through a third of a century of years when the eighteenth century died. She afterwards so cajoled and pleasantly imposed upon Time, that he forgot to score several notches against her, and she reached her eighty-second year, about six months before the next half-century was complete, before it occurred to him that the handsome old lady, with the smooth rosy face, had actually gained twelve lustres on the allotted human term. While her husband was not President until 1809, and continued so only eight years, our Aunt Madison acted like a President’s wife before she went into the Federal mansion, and carried her high head-dress and head under it, like a Presidentess, thirty-two years after he left the Executive residence.