as also a woman of strong convictions and
exceptional strength of character, and rarely failed to make her
influence felt in behalf of what she believed to be right. Although, for
example, the attitude she assumed in regard to the use of wine at the
White House entertainments was a radical departure from precedent and
evoked the antagonism of many of her friends and admirers, she believed
herself to be right and successfully persevered in her course to the
end; so that William M. Evarts, Hayes's Secretary of State, kept pretty
close to the truth when he asserted years thereafter that "during the
Hayes administration water flowed at the White House like champagne!"
She was a woman of deeply religious experience and a devout member of
the Methodist Church. Washington society felt the influence of her
example, and during her residence at the White House the Sabbath was
more generally observed at the National Capital than during any other
administration I have known. As time passed and we became better
acquainted, my respect and admiration for her greatly increased. I
repeatedly spent the evening with her informally at the White House when
our intercourse was unhampered by red-tape, and it was then, of course,
that I saw her at her best. Her _role_ was by no means without its
embarrassments. She necessarily knew that many persons of prominence and
influence viewed with serious doubt the legality of her husband's title
to the Presidential chair and that there were those who even alluded to
him as "His Fraudulency"; but the world was none the wiser, so far as
she was concerned, and she pursued the "even tenor of her way," and by
the subtle influence of her character and conduct won both for her
husband and herself the admiration of many who, but for her, would
probably have remained their enemies.

In 1863 Stephen J. Field of California was appointed by President
Lincoln a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, and made his residence in
one of the three dwelling-houses on Second Street facing the Capitol,
which is said to have been a gift from his brothers, David Dudley, the
eminent lawyer; Cyrus W., the father of the Atlantic cable; and the Rev.
Dr. Henry M., the eminent Presbyterian divine and versatile editor of
_The New York Evangelist_. Here the brothers met every February to
celebrate the birthday of David Dudley Field. For many years after the
destruction of the first Capitol by the British in the War of 1812, the
Field ho