e
most acceptable of guests. Still another elderly gentleman with whom I
had the pleasure of becoming acquainted during this Southern sojourn was
Francis Wayles Eppes. He was the son of U.S. Senator John Wayles Eppes,
whose wife was Maria Jefferson, elder daughter of Thomas Jefferson. He
left Virginia many years prior to my acquaintance with him and settled
with several members of the Randolph family in Western Florida when it
was almost a wilderness.

I left with keen regret this picturesque land of flowers and stately
oaks, but duty called me home, as my husband and little daughter were
growing impatient over our long absence. It would seem that the
observance of timetables differed in those days according to localities
and other circumstances. I was informed that the train I should take
from Tallahassee would leave _about_ such and such a time; but upon my
inquiring in Savannah as to whether the ship upon which I proposed to
embark for Baltimore would leave on time, I was explicitly told by its
captain that if I were a minute late I should not be one of its
passengers.

After my return to Maryland, the home of our adoption, we abandoned the
idea of country life, sold our residence and took up our abode in
Frederick. My children were now reaching an age when education became an
important matter and I took advantage of the Frederick Female Seminary,
an institution that has since become a college, as an excellent place to
which to send my eldest daughter. It was during this period of
transition that it was my good fortune to meet for the first time the
wife of the Hon. Henry Gassaway Davis of West Virginia, who was a native
of Frederick and a daughter of Gideon Bantz. Her two older daughters,
Hallie, the widow of U.S. Senator Stephen B. Elkins, and Kate, who
subsequently became the wife of Robert M. G. Brown of the U.S. Navy,
were boarding pupils at the same school; and Mrs. Davis frequently
visited them while there. My daughters formed an intimate friendship
with Mrs. Brown, whom at a later day we often welcomed as a guest in our
Washington home. She has since passed "over the river," having survived
her mother for only a few months, and her memory is hallowed in my
family circle. Mrs. Elkins, the promising young girl of so many years
ago, is widely known in Washington and elsewhere for her womanly tact,
intelligence and fine presence. Grace, another of Mrs. Davis' daughters,
is now Mrs. Arthur Lee of Washington, but