“All from Gautier’s!” sighed the Postmaster-General, in mock despair. “My wife’s napery is the best to be had, but she will have Gautier’s! Our silver is—certainly not the plainest in the city, but Mrs. Brown must have Gautier’s! We have an incomparable _chef_, but nothing will please my wife but these”; and he scanned the mysterious _menu_ with its tier after tier of unknown French names. Then he turned suddenly and asked me, pointing to a line, “My child, what’s this? Don’t know, eh? Well, neither do I, but let’s try it, anyway. I don’t suppose it will kill us,” and so on, the good old gentleman keeping me in a continual bubble of smothered laughter to the end of the dinner. A member of Mr. Pierce’s Cabinet, whose house was as conspicuous for its large and lavish entertaining as was Mr. Brown’s, was the Secretary of the Treasury, Guthrie, the wealthy Kentuckian. Mr. Guthrie was no society lover (it was a time when statesmen had need to be absorbed in weightier things), but he entertained, I always thought, as a part of his public duty. His was a big, square-shouldered and angular figure, and his appearance, it was obvious, at receptions was perfunctory rather than a pleasure. A widower, his home was presided over by his two daughters, Mrs. Polk and Mrs. Coke, both also widowed. I often thought Secretary Guthrie’s capacious ballroom suggestive, in its proportions, of a public hall. Here, one evening, I had my never-to-be-forgotten _rencontre_ with Chevalier Bertinatti, the Sardinian Minister. Dear old Bertinatti! In all the diplomatic circle of the Pierce and Buchanan administrations there was not to be found a personage at once more dignified and genial. Serious, yet enthusiastic, his naturally kind heart adding warmth to the gallantry for which foreigners are famous, the Chevalier was a typical ambassador of the Latin people. He was a learned man, especially in matters American, and knew our Constitution better than did many of our native representatives in Washington. He encountered bravely, though not always successfully, the difficulties of the English language, and his defeats in this field (such is the irony of fate) have served to keep him longer in the minds of many than have his successes. Upon the occasion to which I have referred, a soirée was held at Secretary Guthrie’s house, at which half the world was present. I wore that evening a gown of foreign silk, the colour of the pomegranate blossom, and with it a Sardinian head-dress and ornaments which had been sent me by a Consular friend. Seeing me at some distance, the Chevalier failed to recognise me and asked one of the hostesses, with whom he was conversing, “Who is zat lady wis my kontree-woman’s ornaments?”