"

Mrs. Lincoln could not bear to hear Tad cry, and when he would plead to
her not to break his heart, she would calm herself with a great effort,
and clasp her child in her arms.

Every room in the White House was darkened, and every one spoke in
subdued tones, and moved about with muffled tread. The very atmosphere
breathed of the great sorrow which weighed heavily upon each heart. Mrs.
Lincoln never left her room, and while the body of her husband was being
borne in solemn state from the Atlantic to the broad prairies of the
West, she was weeping with her fatherless children in her private
chamber. She denied admittance to almost every one, and I was her only
companion, except her children, in the days of her great sorrow.

There were many surmises as to who was implicated with J. Wilkes Booth
in the assassination of the President. A new messenger had accompanied
Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln to the theatre on that terrible Friday night. It
was the duty of this messenger to stand at the door of the box during
the performance, and thus guard the inmates from all intrusion. It
appears that the messenger was carried away by the play, and so
neglected his duty that Booth gained easy admission to the box. Mrs.
Lincoln firmly believed that this messenger was implicated in the
assassination plot.

One night I was lying on a lounge near the bed occupied by Mrs. Lincoln.
One of the servants entering the room, Mrs. L. asked:

"Who is on watch to-night?"

"The new messenger," was the reply.

"What! the man who attended us to the theatre on the night my dear, good
husband was murdered! He, I believe, is one of the murderers. Tell him
to come in to me."

The messenger had overheard Mrs. Lincoln's words through the half-open
door, and when he came in he was trembling violently.

She turned to him fiercely: "So you are on guard to-night--on guard in
the White House after helping to murder the President!"

"Pardon me, but I did not help to murder the President. I could never
stoop to murder--much less to the murder of so good and great a man as
the President."

"But it appears that you _did_ stoop to murder."

"No, no! don't say that," he broke in. "God knows that I am innocent."

"I don't believe you. Why were you not at the door to keep the assassin
out when he rushed into the box?"

"I did wrong, I admit, and I have bitterly repented it, but I did not
help to kill the President. I did not believe that any one would try to