afterwards married Paymaster Brenton
Boggs of the United States Navy.

On another occasion at one of the diplomatic dinners given at the
White House, Madame Bodisco wore a rich, white watered silk, the
sleeves, waist and skirt embroidered with pale rosebuds with
tender green leaves. Her jewels were diamonds and emeralds.

[Illustration: MADAME BODISCO]

Alexander de Bodisco was born in Moscow on the 30th of October, 1786,
and died at his residence in Georgetown on the 23rd of January, 1854,
having filled the post of Russian Envoy to the United States for about
seventeen years. He was in Vienna in 1814 during the famous Congress
which settled the affairs of the continent, and was afterward charge
d'affaires at Stockholm. At his funeral his two nephews, Boris and
Waldemar, both very handsome and dressed in white uniforms, marched on
either side of the hearse, accompanied by attaches of the legation and
members of the household in uniform.

All during my childhood the Williams house stood gaunt and untenanted,
the personification of a haunted house. If only a place with such a
history could have been renovated and kept, instead of disappearing
entirely from Georgetown.

On the next block at 3238 R Street is the house, now somewhat changed,
where lived General H. W. Halleck, chief-of-staff of the army during the
Civil War. After the war General U. S. Grant made it his home until he
became president. Later, until about 1900, it was the home of Colonel
John J. Joyce, a picturesque figure with his leonine head and long white
hair and mustache and black sombrero. It was said he had been the Goat
of the Whiskey Ring. In the last years of his life a lively dispute
arose between him and Ella Wheeler Wilcox as to which was the author of
the lines

Laugh, and world laughs with you,
Weep, and you weep alone!

[Illustration: MOUNT HOPE. THE WILLIAM ROBINSON HOUSE]

It was much discussed in the newspapers at the time. Colonel Joyce's
tombstone in Oak Hill bears a likeness of him carved upon its face.

In the early days of the New Deal this house was rented by a group of
young men, among them Tommy Corcoran and Ben Cohen, who were responsible
for helping to frame much of the legislation of that eventful time. It
was known then as the "Big Red House on R Street."

The southwest corner of Road (R) Street and High (Wisconsin Avenue) was
the land owned by Thomas Sim Lee, who had been Governor of Maryl