as Postmaster-General Creswell, with a head of hair and a beard
that warmed you, it was so silky and bright. There was his wife, too, a
real pretty creature, with manners as sweet as her face; and Mrs. Fish,
almost a mate for a lady I will not name for queenliness; and Governor
Cook with his wife. Besides these, there were lots of young people, and
old people, and middle-aged people, filling car after car, till we had a
whole train all to ourselves. The party was large, but so is a genuine
New England heart, and I managed to make them all welcome in an
off-handed, queenly way, which I hope was understood. It certainly was
by Mr. Iwakura, who lifted his stovepipe hat and bowed like a native
Vermonter before he sat down.

Sisters, I do think there is a meaning in that--a Japanee isn't likely
to study the elegancies of our manners for nothing. Still, I wish he
wasn't a heathen. The Greek Church of Russia sat heavy on my conscience,
but a heathen! I shall have to meet all this politeness with the icy
chill of Christian reserve, unless--the thing is possible, for, to love,
all things are so--that heathen should adopt our religion with the
stovepipe hat.

There was a thing that troubled me a good deal before I came away from
the hotel that morning. I have been told that Mr. Grant and our Vermont
statesman have got up a little spirit of rivalry about being
President--a thing I never dreamed of, they seemed such good friends,
and, till now, I thought Mr. Grant had kind of half invited his old
friend to take the chair. But it isn't so by any manner of means, and
I'm afraid there may be some little dispute about it in the end, which
will be unpleasant to those who like them both.

Now, sisters, here comes in the benefit of being a female, which is
great in such perplexing cases. Female women are not expected to be
consistent, and they're not expected to take sides for any great length
of time. They can just climb any fence that comes handy, and sit on it
with the dignity of hen turkeys at sundown if they have a mind to, and
no one has a right to scare them up. But, considering myself as an
exceptional female, whose duty it is to have ideas, I scorn the fence,
and come right up to the crib, corn or no corn.

It is a duty I owe to the State, and from that I shall never turn aside.
Besides--I own it boldly--in this case duty and a hilarious state of
pleasure unite and make me jubilant as a Fourth of July salute. I like
Greeley b