This was the blood that so often showed how naturally and gracefully a Southern woman could step from a country home to adorn the White House at Washington; the blood that made the South famous for its women, stars at the capital and at Saratoga; favorites in London and Paris; and queenly ladies in their homes, whether that home was a log cabin in the forest or a mansion by the sea. It was common for Northern and European people to praise the taste of Southern women, especially in matters of dress. They did have remarkable taste in dressing, for they had a form to dress and a face to adorn that dress. Neither war nor poverty could mar their grace of form nor beauty of face. It is said of the great Bishop Bascomb, of the Southern Methodist Church, that, in the early years of his ministry, he was so handsome and graceful in person, and so neat in his dress, that a great many of his brethren were prejudiced against him as being what they called "too much of a dandy." For a long time the young orator was sent on mountain circuits to bring him down to the level of plain old-fashioned Methodism. It was proposed to one of his mountain members who was very bitter about the preacher's fine clothes that he give Bascomb a suit of homespun. The offer was gladly accepted, and on the day for Bascomb's appearance in the plain clothes the old brother was early on the church grounds to glory in having made the city preacher look like other folks. Imagine his chagrin when Bascomb walked up, looking in homespun as he looked in broadcloth, an Apollo in form and a Brummel in style. "Well I do declare!" said the old man. "Go it, brother Bascomb; I give it up; It ain't your clothes that's so pretty, it's jist you." So our Southern women were just as charming in the shuck hats and home-made cotton dresses of 1864, as in the silks and satins of 1860. But by their fruits ye shall know them. Walk with me on the streets of Richmond and Charleston. Go with me to any of our country churches throughout these Southern States and I will show you, among the many poor daughters of these women, that same classic face that tells of the blood in their veins. Go with me back to the Confederate army and you will see in such generals as the Lees, Albert Sidney Johnston, Breckinridge, Toombs, the Colquitts, Gordon, Evans, Gracie, Jeb. Stuart, Price, Hampton, Tracy, Ramseur, Ashby and thousands of private soldiers that face and form that tell of the knightly blood in the veins of the mothers that bore them.