A Woman Named Caroline
- Bobby Kelley
- 16 hours ago
- 18 min read
Caroline Webster Schermerhorn was born on September 22, 1830, in New York City, into a world that still belonged to old New York. The city she entered was not yet the sprawling metropolis that would later astonish the world with its towering mansions, electric lights, and endless streams of carriages along Fifth Avenue. Much of fashionable society remained concentrated far downtown, where narrow streets and brick residences stood near the harbor and the old Dutch churches of the city’s earliest families. The Schermerhorns belonged to that older world, one rooted not in the explosive industrial fortunes that would later define the Gilded Age, but in inherited mercantile wealth, colonial ancestry, and social tradition stretching back generations.
Abraham & Helen Schermerhorn
Her father, Abraham Schermerhorn, was a wealthy shipping merchant whose family had long ranked among the Knickerbocker elite. Her mother, Helen Van Courtlandt White Schermerhorn, descended from equally established New York families whose names carried enormous weight in nineteenth century society. Caroline entered life surrounded by privilege, but also by expectations. In old New York, breeding and behavior mattered as much as money, and young girls of families like the Schermerhorns were raised carefully from childhood to understand social ritual, family alliances, and the importance of maintaining the family’s standing.
Known within the family as “Lina,” Caroline spent her earliest years in a city still shaped by the rhythms of an earlier America. Horse-drawn omnibuses rattled over uneven streets. Gas lamps illuminated Manhattan after sunset. Church bells echoed across lower Broadway and Bowling Green. Along the waterfront, ships crowded the harbor carrying goods from Europe and the Caribbean, enriching merchant families like her own. New York was growing rapidly, but it had not yet become the overpowering center of wealth and commerce it would later become during Caroline’s adulthood.
The Schermerhorn family moved within a tightly controlled social circle composed largely of old Dutch-descended families including the Livingstons, Van Rensselaers, Van Cortlandts, and Beekmans. Marriages among these families often reinforced social and financial connections that had existed for generations. Children were raised to understand precisely where they stood within society, and from an early age Caroline absorbed the customs and discipline expected of a young lady of her class.
As she grew older during the 1830s and 1840s, Manhattan itself slowly began changing around her. Wealthier families started moving farther north from the crowded downtown districts, seeking quieter residential neighborhoods away from the noise and commercial activity near the harbor. Elegant homes appeared along Washington Square and Lafayette Place, where broad parlors, formal dining rooms, and private gardens reflected the increasing refinement of upper-class life in New York.
Caroline’s education followed the expectations of elite young women of her era. She was trained in music, language, etiquette, conversation, religion, and the social graces required to navigate upper society. Public ambition was not encouraged in women of her class, yet intelligence, poise, and social awareness were highly prized. Caroline developed all three. Though still young, she possessed a composure and self-control that later became central to the authority she exercised over New York society.
By the time Caroline reached adolescence, New York was entering a period of extraordinary growth. Immigration increased dramatically, commerce expanded, and fortunes multiplied throughout the city. Yet among old Knickerbocker families there remained a belief that true social standing came not merely from wealth, but from lineage and refinement. The Schermerhorns considered themselves guardians of that older social order.
During these years, Caroline began appearing more frequently within society alongside her mother and sisters. Elite New York life revolved around carefully structured social rituals. Families exchanged formal calls during designated afternoon hours. Young women attended dinners, musicales, assemblies, church functions, and private dances under strict supervision. Every interaction carried social meaning. Suitable marriages were quietly encouraged through these gatherings, where family background mattered enormously.
The Astor family possessed a fortune unlike nearly any other in America. Founded by John Jacob Astor through fur trading and vast Manhattan real estate investments, the Astor wealth had become legendary by the middle of the nineteenth century. Yet despite their enormous financial power, the Astors lacked some of the old colonial pedigree possessed by families like the Schermerhorns. In many respects, a marriage between Caroline Schermerhorn and William Backhouse Astor Jr. represented the union of old New York lineage with America’s greatest fortune.
William Backhouse Astor Jr., born on July 12, 1829, moved within the same upper-class circles as Caroline throughout their youth, and over time their acquaintance deepened into courtship. Their relationship unfolded within the strict customs of respectable society. There were formal visits between families, carriage rides accompanied by chaperones, evenings at the opera, dinners attended by carefully selected guests, and appearances at church services attended by New York’s elite families.
As Caroline entered her early twenties, New York society increasingly viewed her as one of the city’s most desirable young women. She possessed beauty, family standing, refinement, and intelligence, qualities that made her exceptionally well positioned within the marriage market of elite Manhattan society.
By the early 1850s, the relationship between Caroline and William Astor had become serious. Their engagement united two powerful New York dynasties at a moment when the city itself stood on the edge of enormous transformation. Railroads were beginning to reshape America. Immigration surged yearly. New fortunes emerged constantly. Yet within the drawing rooms of old New York, tradition still held powerful influence.
On September 23, 1853, Caroline Webster Schermerhorn married William Backhouse Astor Jr. at Trinity Church in lower Manhattan. The wedding became one of the important social events of the season among New York’s elite. Trinity Church itself stood as one of the city’s great landmarks, its towering Gothic spire rising above lower Broadway as carriages crowded the surrounding streets during the ceremony.
At only twenty-three years old, Caroline entered married life carrying one of New York’s oldest names into America’s wealthiest family. Neither she nor the city around her yet understood that she would eventually become the single most powerful social figure of the Gilded Age.
Following their marriage on September 23, 1853, Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor entered one of the wealthiest families in America at a moment when New York itself stood on the edge of enormous change.
At twenty-three years old, she became Mrs. William Backhouse Astor Jr., assuming the Astor name and the immense responsibilities attached to one of America’s greatest fortunes.
Though still young, Caroline possessed remarkable composure, discipline, and social instinct, qualities that became increasingly visible as she settled into married life and the enormous responsibilities attached to the Astor name.
The Astors maintained an elegant household supported by a large domestic staff typical of wealthy New York families.
Servants managed nearly every aspect of daily life, from cooking and laundry to carriage maintenance and formal entertaining. Yet overseeing such a household remained one of the central responsibilities of a woman in Caroline’s position. Meals, guest lists, floral arrangements, visiting schedules, and social obligations all passed through her supervision.
On September 27, 1854, Caroline gave birth to the couple’s first child, Emily Astor. The arrival of a daughter brought great joy to the family and firmly established Caroline within her role as mistress of the Astor household. Infant nurseries, governesses, physicians, wet nurses, and household routines quickly became part of her daily life. Even amid motherhood, however, Caroline remained deeply engaged in society, understanding instinctively that family standing required constant cultivation.
As the young Astor family grew, New York society itself continued migrating northward. Wealthy families increasingly abandoned older neighborhoods farther downtown and established themselves along Fifth Avenue, where rows of handsome brownstones began appearing beside newly planted trees and broad sidewalks. The avenue still lacked the enormous marble mansions that later defined the Gilded Age, but it was steadily becoming the residential center of elite New York.
On June 19, 1855, Caroline gave birth to her second daughter, Helen Schermerhorn Astor. The inclusion of the Schermerhorn name reflected Caroline’s continuing pride in her own lineage and old Knickerbocker ancestry. Family heritage remained enormously important within elite New York society, where names carried social meaning across generations.
By the late 1850s, Caroline had become increasingly practiced in the demanding rituals of upper-class social life. Afternoons were devoted to receiving callers in formal parlors, evenings to dinners, musicales, the opera, and carefully orchestrated entertainments. Young wives like Caroline were constantly observed and quietly judged by older society women, whose approval or criticism could shape reputations for years.
On November 27, 1858, Caroline gave birth to another daughter, Charlotte Augusta Astor. Three children in four years transformed the rhythm of the Astor household. Nurses and governesses supervised much of the daily nursery routine, but Caroline remained deeply conscious of shaping her children into proper representatives of both the Astor and Schermerhorn families.
During these years the Astors increasingly moved within the highest levels of New York society. Balls and formal dinners became more elaborate as wealth expanded throughout the city. New fortunes emerged constantly through shipping, banking, railroads, and commerce. Yet among older families there remained unease regarding these newly rich Americans whose money rivaled, and sometimes surpassed, their own.
On March 27, 1861, Caroline gave birth to her fourth child, Caroline Schermerhorn Astor, known throughout her life as Carrie Astor. Only weeks later, on April 12, 1861, the Civil War began with the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter.
Though distant from the battlefields, New York changed profoundly during the war years. Anxiety spread throughout the city as casualty lists lengthened and political tensions deepened.
Wealthy households like the Astors continued many social customs, but the mood of society shifted noticeably. Mourning attire became increasingly common at dinners, church services, and opera performances as families grieved lost relatives and friends.
Throughout the war, Caroline maintained the dignity and structure expected of an elite New York household. Entertainments became somewhat more restrained, though society never fully disappeared. The Astors remained among the city’s leading families, and Caroline’s confidence as a hostess steadily increased during these difficult years.
On July 13, 1864, Caroline gave birth to her fifth and final child, John Jacob Astor IV, known within the family as Jack. The birth of a son and heir carried enormous significance within the Astor dynasty. From infancy, Jack represented the continuation of one of America’s greatest fortunes.
As the Civil War ended in 1865, New York entered a period of explosive growth unlike anything the city had previously experienced. Fortunes multiplied rapidly during Reconstruction and the postwar industrial boom. Railroads, steel, finance, and shipping created a new class of millionaires whose ambitions increasingly threatened the dominance of older Knickerbocker families. Caroline watched these changes carefully.
Unlike her husband, whose interests remained largely private and financial, Caroline possessed a growing awareness of social power. William increasingly escaped society through travel, yachting, and time spent away from Manhattan at retreats such as Ferncliff in Rhinebeck, while Caroline recognized that influence within society itself could become a form of power equal to wealth. She understood that acceptance, invitation, lineage, and ritual remained as important as money. Over time she began quietly strengthening relationships among older established families while becoming increasingly selective regarding whom the Astors received socially.
During the late 1860s, Newport, Rhode Island also became increasingly important in Caroline’s life. Wealthy New Yorkers had long escaped to seaside resorts during the summer months, but Newport was beginning to evolve into something far grander than a simple retreat from Manhattan heat.
William Backhouse Astor Jr. had visited Newport during earlier years, and by the mid-1860s the Astors were spending increasing amounts of time there during the summer season. Newport at that time still retained much of its older character. Bellevue Avenue had not yet become the uninterrupted procession of marble palaces later associated with the Gilded Age. Many summer residences remained comparatively modest wooden cottages surrounded by lawns and ocean breezes.
In 1880, the Astors acquired Beechwood, one of Newport’s most prominent estates. Originally built in 1851 for businessman Daniel Parrish and designed by Andrew Jackson Downing in the Italianate style, the house overlooked the Atlantic Ocean along Bellevue Avenue. When Caroline first saw Beechwood, it was elegant but far less imposing than the massive Newport mansions that later surrounded it. She immediately understood its possibilities.
The estate possessed broad lawns, sweeping ocean views, and enough interior space to accommodate both family life and increasingly ambitious entertainments. Caroline gradually transformed Beechwood into the center of Astor summer society. Early changes focused on enlarging entertaining areas, updating interiors, improving guest accommodations, and adapting the residence to the growing scale of Newport social life.
Summer routines at Beechwood soon developed their own rhythm. Mornings brought carriage rides and ocean breezes from the Cliff Walk. Afternoons filled with callers, teas, lawn gatherings, and yachting excursions. Evenings revolved around formal dinners illuminated by candlelight and gas chandeliers while servants moved quietly through crowded rooms carrying silver trays and champagne.
At this stage Newport society still remained relatively intimate, but its transformation had already begun. More wealthy families arrived each season. Larger cottages appeared along Bellevue Avenue. Lavish entertainments increased yearly. Caroline recognized before many others that Newport was becoming the summer stage upon which America’s social hierarchy would increasingly be displayed.
Meanwhile, her own authority within New York society continued growing steadily. By the early 1870s, Caroline Astor was no longer merely a wealthy society matron. She was beginning to emerge as one of the most influential women in America.
By the middle of the 1870s, Caroline Astor stood at the center of a society that was changing with astonishing speed. The quiet, restrained world of old Knickerbocker New York that had shaped her youth was steadily disappearing beneath a new age of industrial fortunes, architectural extravagance, and social ambition. Manhattan pushed relentlessly northward. Fifth Avenue expanded into a grand boulevard of wealth, while railroad tycoons, financiers, and industrialists poured enormous sums into houses, art collections, and entertainments designed to rival the aristocracy of Europe. Caroline watched these developments carefully.
She understood that old New York families could easily be overwhelmed by the sheer financial power of newer fortunes if society itself were not carefully controlled. Wealth alone, in her mind, did not entitle a family to social acceptance. Lineage, behavior, restraint, education, and proper connections still mattered. Increasingly, Caroline positioned herself as the guardian of those standards.
By this period, the Astors were firmly established at 350 Fifth Avenue, the great brownstone mansion at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Thirty-Fourth Street. The residence stood slightly north of many older society districts, symbolizing the gradual movement of elite New York uptown. The brownstone itself was imposing but not ostentatious. Compared to the marble palaces that later rose along Fifth Avenue, it reflected an earlier generation of wealth, one that valued dignity over spectacle.
Inside, however, the Astor household operated with immense sophistication. Liveried servants answered the doors. Formal dinners unfolded beneath glittering chandeliers. Floral arrangements arrived daily. Silver services and imported china filled long dining tables surrounded by carefully selected guests. Caroline supervised every social detail personally. Invitations were deliberate. Seating arrangements carried meaning. Even the timing of a reception or dinner call reflected social strategy.
During these years Caroline’s friendship with Ward McAllister became increasingly important. McAllister, a socially ambitious Southerner with a keen understanding of elite customs, admired Caroline enormously and recognized her potential to dominate New York society completely. Together they began shaping the rigid social structure that came to define the Gilded Age.
McAllister often spoke publicly about the importance of exclusivity, refinement, and old family standing. Over time he helped popularize the idea that only a limited number of people truly belonged within New York’s highest social circle. From this emerged the famous concept of “The Four Hundred,” supposedly the precise number of individuals who could comfortably fit into Mrs. Astor’s ballroom at one time. Whether the number itself was exact mattered less than what it represented.
An invitation into Mrs. Astor’s circle became one of the greatest social prizes in America.
By the late 1870s, Caroline’s annual winter balls had become defining events of the New York social season. Preparations began weeks in advance. Servants polished silver endlessly while florists transformed reception rooms with roses, orchids, lilies, and palms. French chefs prepared elaborate multi-course suppers. Musicians rehearsed waltzes and quadrilles that would continue late into the night beneath gas chandeliers and mirrored walls.
On the evening of a Mrs. Astor ball, Fifth Avenue filled with an almost unbroken procession of carriages stretching for blocks. Footmen in livery opened carriage doors beneath blazing entrance lanterns as ladies in satin, velvet, silk, and diamonds climbed the brownstone steps into the Astor mansion. Newspapers reported endlessly upon the gowns, jewels, guest lists, and decorations associated with these entertainments. Young debutantes dreamed of receiving invitations. Ambitious families maneuvered constantly for social acceptance.
And at the center of it all stood Caroline Astor, calm, controlled, and observant.
Meanwhile, Newport was evolving into the summer counterpart to New York’s winter season. Each year the resort became more extravagant as wealthy families expanded cottages into enormous estates overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Bellevue Avenue transformed rapidly during the late 1870s and early 1880s into the grandest concentration of private wealth in America.
At Beechwood, Caroline increasingly expanded both the scale and importance of her entertainments. The house no longer functioned merely as a summer retreat. It had become a stage for society itself.
Guests arrived from New York aboard steamships and private railcars before continuing through Newport’s winding streets in open carriages toward Bellevue Avenue. Summer afternoons at Beechwood filled with garden parties, teas, musicales, and lawn receptions overlooking the ocean. In the evenings, candlelight glowed through the mansion’s tall windows while orchestras played for dinner guests and dancers moving through crowded parlors.
As Newport society grew more elaborate, Caroline realized Beechwood itself required transformation. The original Italianate villa, though elegant, no longer suited the scale of entertaining expected during the height of the Gilded Age. During the late 1880s she turned to architect Richard Morris Hunt, already emerging as America’s most fashionable architect among elite society families.
Hunt dramatically enlarged and redesigned Beechwood, transforming it into one of Newport’s great social palaces. Expansive entertaining rooms replaced more modest earlier interiors. Richly decorated ceilings, carved woodwork, imported furnishings, grand staircases, and glittering chandeliers elevated the mansion into the highest level of Gilded Age luxury.
Most importantly, Hunt created the famous ballroom at Beechwood. The ballroom became one of the defining social spaces of the entire Gilded Age. Vast in scale and brilliantly illuminated, it allowed Caroline to entertain on a level previously impossible within the older house. Newport society revolved increasingly around the events held there. Cotillions, musicales, supper parties, and lavish balls filled the summer calendar as America’s wealthiest families competed for invitations.
At the same time, Caroline’s children were entering adulthood and becoming important figures within society themselves.
Carrie Astor emerged as one of the most celebrated young women in New York. Beautiful, fashionable, and socially prominent, she attracted enormous attention during the early 1880s. Yet her role in society soon placed Caroline in the center of one of the most famous social rivalries of the Gilded Age.
Alva Vanderbilt, wife of William Kissam Vanderbilt, was determined to force the Vanderbilt family fully into New York’s highest social circle. Despite the Vanderbilts’ immense fortune, Caroline and older Knickerbocker families had long resisted granting them complete social acceptance. The conflict reached its peak in 1883.
That year, Alva Vanderbilt began constructing an enormous French château-inspired mansion at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-Second Street designed by Richard Morris Hunt. The residence dwarfed many older New York homes and openly challenged the older social order represented by Caroline Astor.
When Alva Vanderbilt planned a lavish costume ball for March 26, 1883, she understood perfectly that the event could not succeed without Caroline Astor’s presence. Yet Caroline initially hesitated to attend, fully aware that accepting the invitation symbolized the growing power of the Vanderbilts within society.
The situation became deeply complicated when Carrie Astor wished to attend the ball.
Without an invitation for Caroline herself, Carrie could not properly appear. Social tension mounted throughout New York as newspapers and society figures speculated endlessly regarding whether Mrs. Astor would finally recognize the Vanderbilts socially.
Eventually Caroline relented. Her acceptance effectively signaled the Vanderbilts’ entrance into the highest ranks of New York society.
Cabinet Cards of Attendants of the Vanderbilt Ball
The Vanderbilt Ball of March 26, 1883 became one of the most legendary entertainments of the Gilded Age. Hundreds of guests arrived in elaborate historical costumes beneath blazing electric lights while reporters described the spectacle in extraordinary detail. The event symbolized the triumph of new wealth and marked a turning point in the balance of New York society.
Even Caroline Astor could no longer entirely resist the changing age around her.
Yet despite the rise of newer fortunes, her own authority remained immense. Throughout the 1880s she continued presiding over both New York and Newport society with extraordinary discipline and control. Her guest lists still carried enormous influence. Her approval still mattered deeply. And no other hostess in America rivaled the scale or prestige of the entertainments held under her direction.
The death of Emily Astor Van Alen on November 30, 1881 remained one of the great private sorrows of Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor’s life, even as society continued moving around her with relentless energy. By the closing decades of the nineteenth century, she stood at the height of her authority. In New York and Newport, her approval carried enormous power. Invitations to her dinners and balls remained among the most coveted distinctions in America, while younger hostesses measured themselves against the standards she had established decades earlier.
Yet the world surrounding Caroline was changing more rapidly than ever before.
Fifth Avenue no longer resembled the avenue she had first known as a young bride. Marble and limestone palaces now towered over the broad boulevard where rows of dignified brownstones had once stood. Electric lights illuminated vast drawing rooms filled with European paintings, carved paneling, imported tapestries, and towering floral displays. The restrained old Knickerbocker society of Caroline’s youth had evolved into the dazzling spectacle of the Gilded Age.
Her children, now fully grown, occupied important places within elite society. Carrie Astor remained one of New York’s best known social figures following her marriage to Marshall Orme Wilson on November 18, 1884, while her son, John Jacob Astor IV, increasingly emerged as one of the most visible representatives of the Astor dynasty. On February 17, 1891, Jack married Ava Lowle Willing of Philadelphia in one of the major society weddings of the era, uniting two prominent American families.
At Newport, Caroline continued reigning over summer society from Beechwood. The mansion Richard Morris Hunt had enlarged and transformed for her stood among the grandest houses in America. During the height of the season, Bellevue Avenue glittered with carriages carrying guests between vast estates, while the Beechwood ballroom filled with music, candlelight, jewels, and flowers deep into the night.
Yet beneath the elegance, Caroline increasingly recognized that the society she had spent decades controlling was evolving beyond the rigid structure she had once maintained so carefully. New fortunes became impossible to exclude entirely. Younger hostesses emerged. Society itself became larger, louder, and far more public than the quieter world of her own youth.
William Backhouse Astor Jr.’s health steadily declined during the early 1890s. Though never as publicly commanding as his wife, he remained one of the central figures of the Astor family and a steady presence within Caroline’s life for nearly four decades. On April 25, 1892, William died in Paris at the Hotel Liverpool at the age of sixty-two.
His death marked a profound turning point for Caroline. After nearly thirty-nine years of marriage, she became a widow at the height of her social reign. The quieter old New York world that had shaped both William and Caroline seemed to fade further with his passing.
Not long afterward, Caroline made one of the most symbolic decisions of her later life. The old brownstone at 350 Fifth Avenue, once among the grandest residences in New York, had become increasingly surrounded by commerce, hotels, traffic, and the relentless expansion of the modern city. Society itself had moved farther uptown toward Central Park.
Reluctantly, Caroline left the Thirty-Fourth Street mansion that had served as the center of her social empire for decades. She relocated to the immense double mansion designed by Richard Morris Hunt at Fifth Avenue and Sixty-Fifth Street. The French Renaissance style residence represented the monumental scale and extravagance of late Gilded Age architecture. The northern half became Caroline’s residence, while the adjoining southern portion housed her son John Jacob Astor IV, his wife Ava, and their children. Across the rear of both residences stretched a magnificent shared ballroom that became one of the last great settings of old New York society.
Even within the grandeur of the new marble palace, time was beginning to close around the generation that had created the Gilded Age. Many familiar faces disappeared through illness and death. Younger society figures increasingly dominated the ballroom floors and opera boxes that Caroline had once ruled unquestioned. Still, she remained “The Mrs. Astor.”
Her name itself had become inseparable from the idea of New York society. For decades she had defined exclusivity, refinement, and social authority in America. Newspapers continued treating her with immense reverence, recognizing her as the final great symbol of old Knickerbocker New York.
In 1905, Caroline gave what would become her final great entertainment within the ballroom of the Hunt mansion. The occasion was a dinner for Prince Louis of Battenberg, attended by seventy-nine guests. Though modest by the standards of her earlier triumphs, the gathering still reflected the elegance and prestige long associated with Mrs. Astor’s entertainments.
Only days later, Caroline fell on the staircase of the mansion and broke her hip. She was seventy-five years old. The injury marked the beginning of the final decline of her life. Confined thereafter to a wheelchair, the once commanding ruler of New York society gradually withdrew from the public world she had dominated for decades.
During these final years, one of her closest companions became her grandson Vincent Astor, then a lonely teenager growing up within the enormous Fifth Avenue mansion. Caroline, increasingly frail yet still surrounded by the grandeur of her former world, spent long hours moving quietly through the galleries and drawing rooms of the house with Vincent beside her. Together they passed through rooms that had once glittered with the most powerful figures of the Gilded Age.
At times she recalled earlier triumphs at Newport and New York, speaking of balls, dinners, guests, and vanished faces from the height of her social reign. At other moments, age and illness blurred the boundaries between past and present as she greeted old friends long dead as though they still occupied the rooms around her. Despite her famously formal public personality, Caroline showed tenderness toward Vincent during these years, and the boy became deeply devoted to his grandmother.
As the twentieth century advanced, the society Caroline had spent her life shaping slowly faded around her. The generation that had built the Gilded Age grew old. The rituals and hierarchies that once governed New York society weakened steadily beneath the modern world emerging outside the doors of the great Fifth Avenue mansions.
Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor died on October 30, 1908, at her Fifth Avenue residence in New York City at the age of seventy-eight.
News of her death spread rapidly across the country. To many Americans, her passing symbolized the end of old New York itself. During her lifetime she had witnessed Manhattan transform from a comparatively quiet nineteenth century city into the modern capital of wealth and society in America.
Her funeral was held quietly but with immense dignity, attended by members of the Astor family and leading figures of New York society. Following the services, Caroline Webster Schermerhorn Astor was entombed within the Astor Mausoleum at Trinity Church Cemetery.
