Note 20 — Chapter VII · 1854-1855

On their return home from that drawing-room, Mr. Buchanan said to his niece: “Well, a person would have supposed you were a great beauty, to have heard the way you were talked of to-day. I was asked if we had many such handsome ladies in America. I answered, ‘Yes, and many much handsomer. She would scarcely be remarked there for her beauty.’” This anecdote is taken from a book published at New York in 1870, entitled, Ladies of the White House, by Laura Carter Holloway. Deducting a little from the somewhat gushing style in which the biographical sketches in this book are written, it is reliable in its main facts, and it does no more than justice to Miss Lane’s attractions and to the high consideration in which she was held in English society.