Mr. Fillmore was a fine type of the kind of man Americans love to raise to the highest office in their gift. He had not been a mill boy, nor lived in a log-cabin, nor split rails (which was to his discredit), but he had been an apprentice to a wool-carder in Livingston County, New York. Afterward he had worked in a lawyer's office all day and studied at night. He had had no patron. He was essentially a self-made man. When, by the death of President Taylor, he became President of the United States, he fitted into the place as if he had made himself expressly for it.

According to Ampère, who observed us so narrowly in 1852, "M. Fillmore avait un cachet de simplicité digne et bienveillante, qui me semble faire de lui le type de ce que doit être un président Américain."

But nobody said any of those fine things about dear Mrs. Fillmore. The cachet de simplicité she certainly possessed, but she wore it with a difference. In a President it was admirable, in a beautiful woman it would have been adorable. It stamped plain, unhandsome, ungraceful Mrs. Fillmore as ordinary, commonplace. She was the soul of kindness. "She has no manner," said a woman of fashion. "She is absolutely simple. It is not good 99form to be so motherly to her guests. Why, what do you think she said to me at the last levee? 'You look pale and ill, my dear! Pray find a seat.' Think of that! Haven't I a right to look pale and ill, I wonder!"

"She meant to be kind," I ventured. "Should she have permitted you to faint on the floor?"

"Kind, indeed! It was her duty, if she thought me 'gone off in my looks,' to tell me how well I was looking! I should have been all right after that. As it was, I came straight home and went to bed."

I fairly revelled in the music I could now hear. From a famous musician, Mr. Palmer, I took lessons again. He was a notable character—a splendid musician, and a welcome guest at Mr. Corcoran's and other houses, where he amused the company with tricks of legerdemain. He afterward became the celebrated "Heller," the prince of legerdemain and clairvoyance. The elder Booth, Hackett, and Anna Cora Mowatt introduced me to the fascinations of the stage. Nothing to my mind had ever been, could ever be, finer than their Hamlet, Falstaff, and Parthenia. The Armstrongs gave me carte blanche to their box at the theatre, and I saw everything. I wonder if any one at the present day remembers the Ravel brothers and their matchless pantomimes! Mrs. Baird made a party, taking little Lucy to see "Jocko." Not a word was spoken in the play; not an eye was dry in the house.

One evening an agreeable Frenchman whom we 100knew joined us in our box, and seeking an opportunity, whispered to me, "Madame, will you grant me a favor? There—in the parquette, second from the front, voyez-vous? A lady en chapeau bleu?"

"Yes, yes, I see! Who is she?"

"Madame" (tragically), "that demoiselle with the young man is fiancée to my friend!"

"And you are perhaps jealous!"

"Ah, mais non, Madame! I have this moment said to my friend, 'Regardez votre fiancée.' He has responded, 'C'est vrai! It is custom of this country.'"

"And what then?" I asked.

"Oh!" shrugging his shoulders in scorn not to be expressed in words, "I say, 'Eh bien, Emil. If you satisfy, I very well satisfy!' But, pardon, Madame, is it convenable in this country for demoiselle to appear at theatre with young gentleman without chaperon?"

I found refuge in ignorance: "I am sure I cannot say. You see I am from Virginia. I haven't been long in Washington, and customs here may differ from manners in my home."

I was a proud woman when Mr. Pierce sent for my young editor to read with him his inaugural address. These were mighty political secrets, not to be shared with Miss Dick, and thus published to her little boarding-house world. I felt that I belonged, not to that nor to any other small world. I belonged to the nation; and strange to say, that impression (or must I say delusion?) never left me in my darkest, most obscure days. 101 Mr. Pierce liked my young editor. We adored him! Only since we lost him have we learned of his many mistakes, vacillation, weakness, unpopularity; nothing of these appeared in 1852. He had been a fine politician, had served his country "with bravery and credit," enlisting as a private in the Mexican War. "His integrity was above suspicion, and he was deeply religious." It is quite certain he did not desire the nomination. There was nobody in his family to exult over his promotion, no son, no daughter to blossom with new beauty because of the splendid stem on which she grew. Only a sick, broken-hearted wife, too feeble to endure the exactions of social life, too sad to take part in anything outside her own room. She did not even attempt it. It was at once understood that our republican court was such only in name. In name only did Mrs. Pierce appear in its annals. I never saw her. I never saw any one who had seen her. We thought of her as a Mater Dolorosa, shrouded in deepest mourning, and we gave her a sacred place in our hearts.

I cannot close my records of this, my earliest experience of Washington life, without remembering with gratitude all I owe to the friendship and wisdom of the discreet, cultured women who felt an early interest in me, guiding and instructing me. Mrs. Spenser Baird, Mrs. Garnett(née Wise), lovely Annie Wise, and Maria Heth, these were my intimate friends. Mrs. Garnett, a lovely Christian woman, watched me closely and rest............