from the hands of unoffending ladies, fearing they might use them; no dogs were to be within patting distance, and no smoking; he turned all the chairs to face the piano so that no one should turn his back to it. These are all heinous crimes in his eyes. He would, if he could, have pulled down all the portières and curtains, as he does in his own house when I sing there. What must people think of him?

You ask me, "What kind of a cook have you?" Don't speak of it—it is a sore subject! We have the black cook from the White House (so her certificate says). She is not what our fancy painted her. Neither is the devil as black as he is painted (I don't know why I associate them in my mind). We had painted this cook white. I shudder to think how the White House must have lived in those years when she did the cooking. Our dinners are simply awful. Although she has carte blanche to provide anything and everything she wants, our dinners are failures. I look the fact in the face and blush. Our musical parties are better when I do the cooking and Johan does the serving—I mean when I sing and he fills the gaps. The diplomats groan. "Think," they say, "what a finished cook would do with all the delicious things they have here—all these wonderful birds and meats and vegetables, and only the one sauce!"

The charity concert, of which I was dame patronesse, went off with success. We made a great deal of money. M. de Schlözer paid twenty dollars for his ticket. My chorus covered itself with glory and was encored. As the concert finished at ten, we adjourned to the Zamaconas' (Minister of Mexico) first ball, and I hope, for them, their only one. It was one of those soirées where people appropriate the forks and spoons. It cost, they say, ten thousand dollars. The assemblage was promiscuous, to say the least. Every one who asked for an invitation got one, and went. The Minister had hired the house next the Legation, and cut doors into it so that there should be plenty of room, but even then there was not sufficient space to contain the crowd of miscellaneous guests. There were two orchestras, but no one wanted to dance. Every one wandered about through the rooms or lolled in the grottoes, which were lighted with different-colored lamps. In every corner were fountains of cologne, around which the gentler sex stood in crowds saturating their handkerchiefs—some of which had cross-stitch initials in red thread. Mirrors were placed at the end of each room to prolong the vista. "Mexico," in enormous letters formed by gas-jets, stood over the entrances. And as for the supper, it was in a room out of all proportion to the gathering! There was no question of getting into it; only prize-fighters and professional athletes could elbow their way through the crowd. The waiters had long since disappeared, frightened at their formidable task. The chairs intended for the guests were utilized as tables on which to put unfinished plates of food and half-empty glasses. Everything that was not spilled on the floor was spilled on the table. Such things as bonbons, cakes, etc., that could be stowed away in pockets, vanished like magic. Gentlemen (?) broke the champagne-bottles by knocking them on the table, sending the contents flying across the room. The lady guests drew out the silver skewers which ornamented the plats montées and stuck them in their hair as mementoes of this memorable evening.

WASHINGTON, 1876.

Dear Aunt,—The best way I can spend this Ash-ful Wednesday is to write a penitent letter to you and beg you to forgive my long silence; but if you could imagine what a life we have been leading, I think that, being the being you are, you would make excuses for a niece who gets up with the sun and goes to bed with the morning star. When that morning star appears I am so tired I can think of nothing but bed and the bliss of laying my diplomatic body down to rest.

Dear old Mr. Corcoran (almost blind now) gave a unique banquet in honor of Johan and me. We went first to the theater to see "Rip Van Winkle" played by Jefferson. It was delightful, though I cried my eyes out. From the theater we went to Mr. Corcoran's house for a roasted-in-the-shell oyster supper. Johan, who had never before attended such a feast, thought he had got loose among a lot of milkmaids and firemen, each with his bucket and pail, and when he saw the enormous pile of oysters brought in on platters he wondered how many "r's" March had in her. However, like a lamb he sat next to his pail, and after having consumed about a bushel himself he became quite expert at opening the oysters and throwing the shells in his pail. It was a most amusing and original evening, and the amount of oyster-shells we left behind us would have paved the way to the Capitol.

Another original entertainment I must tell you about. We received a note from General Burnside (Senator from Rhode Island): "Will you come to my codfish dinner on Thursday next?" We of course accepted and went. General Burnside and Senator Anthony are great friends and live together. I never could understand, and never dared to ask, why such a little state as Rhode Island needed two Senators. However, that is neither here nor there. The other guests were Mr. Bayard, Mr. Blaine, Mrs. Blaine, Mrs. Lawrence, General Sherman. According to the rules of a codfish dinner, every one was provided with the same amount of boiled codfish, hard-boiled eggs, beets, carrots, and potatoes, and every English sauce ever made. Every one made his own mixture, which was passed about and "sampled." The lucky person who got the greatest number of votes received a beautiful silver bowl. The dining-room was arranged as if it were a camp. There were no ornaments of any kind, and we sat on little iron tent-chairs. You may imagine after we had finished with the codfish that our appetites were on the wane, and we felt that we had dined sumptuously, if monotonously, when, lo! our genial host surprised us with an enormous turkey (reared on his own estate), twenty-seven pounds in weight, with its usual accompaniments of cranberry sauce, sweet-potatoes, and so forth. Mr. Blaine and Mr. Bayard were fountains of wit.

Then another entertainment, a sort of mardi-gras maigre feast, was a champagne tea given for us at the Capitol by Mr. Blaine. He had invited a great many of the Senators and the Ministers, his wife, and some other ladies. These mighty people talked politics and had prodigious appetites. Sandwiches and cake disappeared in a hazy mist, and they drank oceans of champagne. They took cocktails before, during, and after! I amused myself—as I can't talk politics, and would not if I could—by noticing the ingenuity and variety of the spittoons placed about in convenient spots. The spittoons that tried to be pretty were the most hideous. I liked best the simplicity of the large, open, ready-to-receive ones filled with clean, dainty sand. There was no humbug about them, no trying to be something else; whereas the others, that pretended to be Etruscan vases or umbrella-stands or flower-pots, were failures in my eyes. Why are they ashamed of themselves? Why do they call themselves by the graceful name of "cuspidor"—suggestive of castanets and Andalusian wiles? Why such foolish masquerading? Spittoons will be spittoons—they risk not being recognized. I said as much as this to Mr. Blaine. "You are right," he said, "to fight their battles. Did you ever hear the story about the Western man who was not accustomed to such artistic objects, and said in one of his spitting moods, 'If you don't take that darned thing away I'll spit in it'?"

I forgot to tell you that the Emperor and Empress of Brazil are here "doing" Washington—doing it so thoroughly that they have almost overdone it. The Brazilian Minister is worn out. Every day he has a dinner and an entertainment of some kind. The Emperor wants to see everything and to know everybody. No institution is neglected, and all the industries are looked into thoroughly. He goes to the Senate very often and sits through