ing for me, because driving home the groom became my friend,
handed me the reins and taught me to drive.

The firm of James Gore King's Sons had become a power in
Wall Street during the period of expansion and the violent
fluctuations in prices that preceded the Civil War. Many of
the largest fortunes in America made from business date from
this time. Mr. Duer was a member of his father's firm and the
early married life of Alice's parents was one of wealth and
gaiety and fashion. Large double houses surrounded Washing-
ton Square and, extending up Fifth Avenue, formed the most
luxurious social quarter New York has ever had. The house
where the Duers lived when they were first married stood at
the corner of Fifth Avenue and Twelfth Street.

My mother inherited from her father-in-law one of the most
famous chefs in New York, who taught her all she knew of the art
of the table, and she knew a great deal. Every cook in later days
was taught how to make puff-paste according to his receipt, and
it melted in your mouth as no other ever did. The night before a
great party the Duers always had a small dinner of their intimate
friends, and then everyone adjourned to the kitchen and helped
to make the spun sugar, and nougat, and set-pieces in chocolate
and white sugar that were the fashion of the day.

I remember my grandfather saying to Charles Carroll: "I do not
want to see anyone who is a Southerner, a Democrat or a Roman
Catholic," and hearing Mr. Carroll answer pleasantly, "Thank you,
Mr. Duer, I am all three."

I remember a performance of Blue Beard in which one of my
sisters in a beard, dressed in a Nankeen jacket brought home by my
uncle who had served with Perry, asking of the trembling father
of Fatima, "Have you any daughters? Are they fair?"

And the beautiful young men who came from New York to play
tennis with my sisters, one of whom always sent me a box of candy
whenever he presented my elder sister with flowers.

After breakfast I was given a few minutes of exercise on the
piazza. I would jump over, as I grew in age, an increasing number
of the narrow boards that made the piazza floor.

At dinner the candelabra--the same I use today--were turned
sideways to give me free passage down the full length of the
mahogany dining table, polished like a black mirror, from my aunt
at one end to my father at the other. The flames of the candles

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