ble coach, the wheels of which are heard upon the driveway before
the death of any member of the family.
Of the Caton sisters there were four, but because one of them, Mrs.
McTavish, stayed at home and made the life of her grandfather happy, we
do not hear so much of her as of the other three, who were
internationally famous for their pulchritude, and were known in England
as "the Three American Graces." All three married British peers, one
becoming Marchioness of Wellesley, another Duchess of Leeds, while the
third became the wife of Lord Stafford, one of the noblemen embalmed in
verse by Fitz-Greene Halleck:
Lord Stafford mines for coal and salt,
The Duke of Norfolk deals in malt,
The Douglas in red herrings.
As for Charles Carroll of Homewood, he was handsome, charming, and
athletic, and, as indicated in letters written to him by his father,
caused that old gentleman a good deal of anxiety. It is said that at
one time--perhaps during some period of estrangment from his wealthy
parent--he acted as a fencing master in Baltimore.
At the age of twenty-five he settled down--or let us hope he did--for he
married Harriet Chew, whose sister "Peggy," Mrs. John Eager Howard of
Baltimore, was a celebrated belle, and of whose own charm we may judge
by the fact that General Washington asked her to remain in the room
while he sat to Gilbert Stuart, declaring that her presence there would
cause his countenance to "wear its most agreeable expression." The
famous portrait painted under these felicitous conditions hung in the
White House when, in 1814, the British marched on Washington; but when
they took the city and burned the White House, the portrait did not
perish with it, for history records that Dolly Madison carried it to
safety, and along with it the original draft of the Declaration of
Independence.
Charles Carroll of Homewood died before his father, "the Signer," but
the house, Homewood, which the latter built for his son and
daughter-in-law in 1809, stands to-day near the Baltimore city limits,
at the side of Charles Street Boulevard, amid pleasant modern houses,
many of which are of a design not out of harmony with the old mansion.
Though not comparable in size with the manor house at Doughoregan,
Homewood is an even more perfect house, being one of the finest examples
of Georgian architecture to be found in the entire country. The fate of
this house is hardly less fortunate than that of the paterna
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