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“Well, Mrs. Minturn just sat there with her hands in a bunch until Mrs. Cranston reached down for her reticule, which was just a whisker away from me. She handed her some money.”

Gathering “what silver she could crowd into her old-fashioned reticule”—a handbag with a drawstring—she “then Jumped into the chariot with her servant girl Sukey,” said Paul Jennings.

She dispensed intelligence and irony as if each were fresh herbs in a reticule she kept tied to the belt of her dress.

They were often called lady apples, as they could slide into a purse or reticule without producing an unsightly bump – perfect for today’s lunchbox.

The first lady, “caught up what silver she could crowd into her old-fashioned reticule, and then jumped into the chariot with her servant girl Sukey, and Daniel Carroll, who took charge of them,” Jennings wrote.