Tennessee Betty Vance, whose beauty's fame was world-wide, and Mary Wright, later Mrs. Treadwell. At a ball given Prince Arthur when in this country, a wealthy belle was selected to lead with him. The prince thinking he was to choose his partner, fixed on Mary Wright, exquisite in poverty's simple white gown, and asked: "May I lead with her?" In North Carolina were Sophia Portridge, women of the houses of Devereaux, Vance, Mordecai--but I am not writing the South's "Book of Fair and Noble Women." I leave out of my list names brilliant as any in it. [Illustration: MRS. DAVID L. YULEE (Daughter of Governor Wickliffe, of Kentucky) She was the wife of Senator Yulee, of Florida, Vice Regent of the Mount Vernon Association of Florida, and was known as the "Madonna of the Wickliffe Sisters."] Of all the fair women I have ever seen, Mary Meade was fairest. No portrait can do justice to the picture memory holds of her as "Bride" to D'Arcy Paul's "Bridegroom" in the "Mistletoe Bough," which Mrs. Edwin Morrison staged so handsomely that her amateurs were besought to "star" in the interest of good causes. Our fair maids were no idle "lilies of loveliness." The Meade sisters and others turned talents to account in mending fallen family fortunes. Maids and matrons labored diligently to gather our soldier dead into safe resting-places. The "Lyrical Memorial," Mrs. Platt's enterprise, like the "Mistletoe Bough" (later produced), was called for far and wide. The day after presentation in Louisville, the Federal Commandant sent Mary Meade, who had impersonated the South pleading sepulture for her sons, a basket of flowers with a live white dove in the center. Slowly in Richmond interchange of little human kindnesses between neighbors established links. General Bartlett, occupying the Haxall house, who had lost a leg in the war, was "the Yankee who conquered my wife," a Southerner bears witness. "I came home one day and found him sitting with her on my steps. He suffered greatly from his old wound, bore it patiently, and by his whole conduct appealed to her sweet womanliness. His staff was quiet and orderly." The beautiful daughter of one family and her feeble grandmother were the only occupants of the mansion into which General Ord and his wife moved. The pair had no money and were unable to communicate with absent members of the household who had been cut off from home by the accidents of war while visiting in another city. The younger lady was ill with typhoid fever. The general and his wife were very thoughtful and generous in supplying ice, brandy, and other essentials and luxuries. "Under Heaven," the invalid bore grateful witness when recovering, "I owe my life to General and Mrs. Ord." Her loveliness and helplessness were in themselves an argument to move a heart of stone to mercy; nevertheless, it was virtue and grace that mercy was shown.