CHAPTER V
One of the first events of social importance in the early sixties was the visit of the Prince of Wales to New York. I remember the pretty, slender, fair-haired youth very well, and went to the ball given in his honor. Ladies then dressed in the style of Eugénie's portrait by Winterhalter — long, flowing trains, a rather small hoop, tight sleeves, the low-necked dress defined around the neck with a berthe of lace, and the hair dressed low in bandeaux under the ears, with wreaths and streaming garlands of artificial flowers on the head. Certainly the style left a fine figure well to itself, with no impertinent deformities.
Very aristocratic and grand looked the assemblage in the old Academy of Music at the ball given to greet the Prince.
The Fishes, Belmonts, Astors, Cuttings, Morrises, Kings, Livingstons, Hamiltons, Jays, Duers, Emmets, Russells, Cunards, Howlands, Aspinwalls, Grinnells, Schuylers, Pells, and Rhinelanders made then a very decided and exclusive circle, of which Mrs. Belmont might be called the fashionable leader. Mrs. Hamilton Fish, Mrs. Robert Cutting, and Mrs. J. J. Astor were the duchesses; Mrs.
