And the daughter, Mrs. Annie King, for though a widow she retains the family name. Who remembers Miss Harriet Lane when she presided at the White House, her regal manners, her queenly beauty, her high tone of character? The sun by day or the moon by night would as soon be a subject for the scandalmonger as the accomplished niece of the President. Have we any such women left in Washington? It is true they are rare, but they are here, just as diamonds of the first water are found in remote parts of the earth. The portrait of Mrs. King bears a striking resemblance to those of Miss Harriet Lane taken when she was “the leading lady of the land.” Mrs. King is the favorite “American lady” with the foreign legations. Her residence abroad made her familiar with the French language, which she speaks as fluently as English. Some great writer has said “that all we have to show for the civilization of five thousand years is the difference between a wigwam and a lady’s parlor.” Let us beg to differ with the man who wrote that. At least, before the writer gave such a final decision about civilization, he should have come to Washington and attended a President’s levee, a Cabinet crush, and then beached himself high and dry at 707 H street. In the early part of the nineteenth century, the French painter, Gerard, who was a resident of Paris, opened his salon and held what he termed “reunions.” To these gatherings came all that was refined, elegant, and distinguished at this gayest of capitals. Gerard’s salon consisted of a floor of four rooms, with an ante-room. At 12 o’clock he gave his guests a cup of tea and the same everlasting cakes, says Madame Ancelot, the whole year round. Monsieur Gerard had no help from his wife so far as the entertainment was concerned, for she took her seat at a whist table and kept it until the last guest was gone. But Gerard’s “reunions” became known all over Europe, for the man had the talent to draw all that was celebrated in literature, science, and art to his humble headquarters. “From Madame de Stael down to Mlle. Mars, from Talleyrand and Pozzo di Borgo down to M. Thiers, there were no celebrities, male or female, that during thirty years (from 1805 to 1835) did not flock to Gerard’s house, and all, no matter how different might be their characters or position, agreed in the same opinion as to their host.” Monsieur Gerard termed his modest entertainments “reunions,” and this must be the original from whence the Hon. Horatio King took the name. Transplanted, it flourishes at our own crude capital.