Not the least of that happy day’s diversions was making our toilettes for the afternoon fête, and it was amusing to see the high and mighty airs Mammy assumed on the occasion, changing a bow here, supplying a pin there, arranging plaits, ruffles and puffs, then when she had finished dressing us surveying her work as an artist might a completed _chef d’œuvre_. We wore the costumes presented to us by our parents as Christmas gifts--Cousin Rachel, who was pretty and graceful, a pink cashmere; I, a blue one; we both wore silk clock stockings with kid slippers. John was gorgeous in a Highland plaid suit, and brother Jackson, who was tall, erect and handsome, gave promise in a brass-button jacket of the gallant officer he afterwards became. Miss Cora Livingston, who kindly volunteered to chaperone the frolic, came about four and led the way to the East Room, which was tastefully decorated with evergreens and flowering plants. Our guests arrived promptly, and meeting them at the door, we kissed the girls and shook hands with the boys. The former wore light colors, the latter their smartest suits, all making a brave showing, though there were no elaborate costumes, styled Worth confections and suggesting Parisian ballet dancers, like those seen nowadays at juvenile gatherings. Among our guests were the Woodbury, Blake, Jones, Lee, Macomb, Carroll, Graham, Turnbull, Pleasanton, Taney, Corcoran, Peters, and Hobbie children, with all of whom we were well acquainted, having dancing-school, Sunday-school, picnic and play-room associations in common. A few older guests, Mrs. Madison bringing her grand-niece, Addie Cutts; Mrs. Lee with little Custis, Baroness Krudener, Mesdames Huygens and Serrurier and Sir Edward Vaughn, joined the President and members of his family in the Red Room and served as spectators of a novel and delightful entertainment. We played “Blind Man’s Buff,” “Hide and Seek,” “Puss-in-the-Corner,” and several juvenile forfeit games, all entered into with zest and thoroughly enjoyed, the East Room proving an ideal play-ground, and the players, free and unrestrained as if on a Texas prairie, romping, scampering, shouting, laughing, in all the exuberance of childish merry-making. Mr. Van Buren and Miss Cora joined in, rather led the games, and added greatly to their success. Several amusing incidents varied their usual routine. In “Hide and Seek” the switch, after numerous hot and cold signals, was discovered in a boy’s jacket pocket, where a mischievous girl had slipped it, and in “Puss-in-the-Corner,” Willie M----, provoked with Jennie T---- for eluding his grasp, called out: “You are no pussy, but a slippery old cat.”