s
Catonsville, gave to society the four Caton sisters, celebrated at home
and abroad by the name, conferred by English admirers, of the "American
Graces." They were the granddaughters of Charles Carroll of Carrollton
and daughters of Richard Caton, and three of them respectively married,
in two cases after prior matrimonial alliances, the Marquis of
Wellesley, eldest brother of the Duke of Wellington and himself a
distinguished Governor-general of India and, later, Lord Lieutenant of
Ireland; the Marquis of Carmarthen, eldest son and finally successor of
the Duke of Leeds; and Baron Stafford. These were "great matches" for
the daughters of a provincial town; and it is a little singular that
Louisa Caton, who became the sister-in-law of Elizabeth Bonaparte by her
first marriage to William Patterson, should afterward become allied to
the family of the man, in the Duke of Wellington, who was most
instrumental in overthrowing the fortunes of the family to which Miss
Patterson had allied herself by her marriage, and Baltimore be thus
connected in its traditions with the respective leaders in the most
decisive battle the modern world has ever known.

Though America was spared the adoption of the notable extravagances of
European fashions, yet everywhere, in every aspect, were to be seen
European conditions of society. Even the type of American woman,
preserved till now in certain peculiarities of mental attitude, began to
fail. There remained many individual representatives of that type, and
these among our most aristocratic society; but in the mass it was not
observable. To do away with such type, to lose all distinctiveness of
racial attitude, was fast becoming the aim of the American society
woman. This was well enough when it had to do with graces of bearing and
amenities of intercourse; but it lent itself to affectations and follies
as well. The wife and the mother were no longer the representative
American women; the homely and the home-giving chrysalis had been cast
aside, and the lustrous but useless butterfly was spreading its wings
for flight. Still a country of homes in its more widely spread
conditions, this was not the aspect assumed by America when it was gazed
upon by foreign eyes, for these saw first the most prominent rather than
the deeper facts. The capital was fast becoming more of social than of
political importance, and the wives and daughters of the senators and
representatives in Congress assembled at