was a beautiful Jewess, the same one whom Walter Scott
has depicted in his well-known Rebecca. This legend of the beautiful
Jewess was current in my youth. A later authority informs us that Mr.
Irving was really engaged to Matilda, daughter of Josiah Ogden Hoffman,
a noted lawyer of New York, and that the death of the lady prevented the
intended marriage from taking place. "He could never, to his dying day,
endure to hear her name mentioned," it is said, "and, nearly thirty
years after her death, the accidental discovery of a piece of her
embroidery saddened him so that he could not speak."

CHAPTER III

NEW YORK SOCIETY

It has been explained that the continued prosperity of France under very
varying forms of government is due to the fact that the municipal
administration of the country is not affected by these changes, but
continues much the same under king, emperor, and republican president.

I find something analogous to this in the perseverance of certain
underlying tendencies in society despite the continual variations which
diversify the surface of the domain of Fashion.

The earliest social function which I remember is a ball given by my
father and mother when I must have been about four years of age. Quite
late in the evening, I was taken out of bed and arrayed in an
embroidered cambric slip. Some one tried to fasten a pink rosebud on the
waist of my dress, but did not succeed to her mind. I was brought into
our drawing-rooms, which had undergone a surprising transformation. The
floors were bare, and from the ceiling of either room was suspended a
circle of wax lights and artificial flowers. The orchestra included a
double bass. I surveyed the company of the dancers, but soon curled
myself up on a sofa, where one of the dowagers fed me with ice-cream.
This entertainment took place at our house on Bowling Green, a
neighborhood which has long been given up to business.

As a child, I remember silver forks as in use at my father's dinner
parties. On ordinary occasions, we used the three-pronged steel fork
which is now rarely seen. My father sometimes admonished my maternal
grandmother not to put her knife into her mouth. In her youth every one
used the knife in this way.

Meats were carefully roasted in what was called a tin kitchen, before an
open fire. Desserts on state occasions consisted of pastry, wine jelly,
blanc-mange, with pyramids of ice-cream. This last was always supplied
by a French r