Unlike the other first ladies of the day, Martha Washington made little effort toward ostentation, and her plain manner of dress was sometimes the occasion of astonishment and comment on the part of wives of foreign representatives. Says Miss Chambers concerning this contrast between European women and Mrs. Washington, as shown at a birthday ball tendered the President in 1795: "She was dressed in a rich silk, but entirely without ornament, except the animation her amiable heart gives to her countenance. Next her were seated the wives of the foreign ambassadors, glittering from the floor to the summit of their head-dress. One of the ladies wore three large ostrich feathers, her brow encircled by a sparkling fillet of diamonds; her neck and arms were almost covered with jewels, and two watches were suspended from her girdle, and all reflecting the light from a hundred directions."

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