nger, a sister of my old and valued friend, Mrs. Sanders Irving. As
soon as they were settled in their home, Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey gave a
large evening entertainment which Mr. Gouverneur and I attended. We much
enjoyed meeting there a number of Kentuckians temporarily residing in
Washington--among others, Mrs. John Key of Georgetown and her sister,
Mrs. Hamilton Smith; Mrs. William E. Dudley; and Wickliffe Preston and
his sister, a decided blonde who wore a becoming green silk gown. Madame
Le Vert and her daughter, Octavia Walton Le Vert, were also there and
it is with genuine pleasure I recall the unusual vivacity of the former.
This gifted woman was a pronounced belle from Alabama and had passed
much of her life in Italy, where she had much association with the
Brownings. During her absence abroad the ravages of our Civil War made
serious inroads upon her financial circumstances, and when she visited
Washington at the period of which I am speaking she gave a series of
lectures upon Mr. and Mrs. Robert Browning in Willard's Hall on F
Street. They received the endorsement of fashionable society and, at the
conclusion of her last appearance, Albert Pike, the later apostle of
Freemasonry, offered as an additional attraction a short discourse upon
his favorite theme. Madame Le Vert's maiden name was Octavia Walton, and
she was the granddaughter of George Walton, one of the Signers from
Georgia, and the daughter of George Walton, the Territorial Governor of
Florida. In 1836 she married Dr. Henry S. Le Vert, son of the
fleet-surgeon of the Count de Rochambeau at Yorktown, Va. In 1858 her
"Souvenirs of Travel" appeared, and later she wrote "Souvenirs of
Distinguished People" and "Souvenirs of the War," but, for personal
reasons, neither of the two was ever published.

My first acquaintance with George Bancroft, the historian, dates back to
the year 1845, when he came from New England to deliver a course of
lectures and was the guest of my father in New York. One of the evenings
he spent with us stands out in bold relief. He was a man of musical
tastes, and Justine Bibby Onderdonk, a friend of mine and a daughter of
Gouverneur S. Bibby, who only a few days before had made a runaway match
with Henry M. Onderdonk, the son of Bishop Benjamin T. Onderdonk of New
York, happened to be our guest at the same time. Her musical ability was
of the highest order and she delighted Mr. Bancroft by singing some of
his favorite selections. Late