ne at the dinner-table. He is a most delightful
talker and full of anecdotes.

Mrs. Robeson's "Sunday evenings" are very popular. She has given up
singing and does not--thank Heaven!--have any music. She thinks it
prevents people from talking (sometimes it does, and sometimes it has
the contrary effect). She prefers the talking, in which she takes the
most active part. Mr. Robeson is the most amiable of hosts, beams and
laughs a great deal.

The _enfant terrible_ is quoted incessantly. She must be overwhelmingly
amusing. She said to her mother when she saw her in evening dress; "Mama,
pull up your collar. You must not show your stomach-ache!" Everything
in anatomy lower than the throat she calls "stomach-ache"--the fountain
of all her woes, I suppose.

Mr. Blaine and Mr. Robeson, supplemented by General Schenck, are great
poker-players. They are continually talking about the game, when they
ought to be talking politics for the benefit of foreigners. You hear
this sort of thing, "Well, you couldn't beat my full house," at which
the diplomats prick up their ears, thinking that there will be
something wonderful in Congress the next day, and decide to go there.

Mr. Brooks, of Cambridge, made his Fourth-of-July oration at our
_soiree_ on Thursday. This is the funniest thing I have ever heard. Mr.
Evarts almost rolled off his seat. It is supposed to be a speech made
at a Paris _fete_ on the Fourth of July, where every speaker got more
patriotic as the evening went on. The last speech was the climax:

"I propose the toast, '_The United States!_'--bordered on the north by
the aurora borealis; on the east by the rising sun; on the west by the
procession of equinoxes; and on the south by eternal chaos!"

WASHINGTON, _April, 1879_.

Mr. Schurz, as Secretary of the Interior, was to receive a conclave of
Indians, and could not refuse Mrs. Lawrence, Miss Chapman, and myself
when we begged to be present at the interview. They came to make some
contracts. The interpreter, or agent, or whatever he was, who had them
in charge proposed to dress them suitably for the occasion, but when he
heard there were to be ladies present he added colored and striped
shirts, which, the Indians insisted upon wearing over their embroidered
buckskin trousers. They caused a sensation as they came out of the
clothes-shop. They had feather head-dresses and braids of hair hanging
down by the sides of their brown cheeks. They wore bracelets on their