but the most are, I guess. Nearly all the Cabinet ladies are here to-
day and a good many Senators' wives and darters. That there lady in
heliotrope and fur is the wife of the Secretary of War, and the one in
green velvet and chinchilla is Mis' Senator Maxwell. That real stylish
handsome girl just behind is her darter, and I guess she has a good
many beaux. They're real elegant, ar'n't they? I guess we have good
cause to be proud of our ladies."

She paused that Betty might express her approval, and upon being
assured that Paris was responsible for many of the gowns present,
continued in her monotonous but kindly drawl,

"And some of them began life doin' their own work. The President ain't
no aristocrat, and most of his friends ain't neither; but I tell you
when their wives begin to entertain they do it jest as if they was
born to it. I presume if my husband--he was a physician--had gone into
politics and had luck, I'd have been jest like those ladies; but as he
didn't, I'm still doin' most of my own work and look it. But the Lord
knows what he's about, I guess. Senator Maxwell's a swell; they've
always been rich, the Maxwells, and he married a New York girl, so she
didn't have much to learn, I guess. Mis' Senator Shattuc--she's the
one in wine colour--was the darter of a big railroad man out West, so
I guess she had all the schoolin' and Yurrup she wanted. Now that real
pretty little woman jest speakin' to Lady Montgomery is Mis' Senator
Freeman. They do say as how she was the darter of a baker in Chicago
and used to run barefoot around the streets, but she looks as well as
any of 'em now and she dines at every Embassy in Washington. Her
dresses are always described in the _Post_: she wears pink and blue
mostly. You kin tell by her face that she's got a lot of determination
and that she'd git where she had a mind to. I guess she'd dine with