dignified repose of Ebbet House I have no such fear; my only anxiety is as to how I can ever again reconcile myself to the time-honoured cold mutton of domestic life after all this luxurious living. What made Senator B— confer the dignity of Hon. on me I am at a loss to understand. I know there are times when I think it right and proper to blow my own trumpet in the unavoidable absence of my trumpeter; but, in the present instance, I must candidly confess to have done nothing of the kind. It is to be presumed that my improved position, as regards lodging in Ebbet House, Washington, is to be attributed to the social status given me by Senator B—, a gentleman who, in personal appearance and size, bears somewhat of a resemblance to our late lamented Right Hon. W. E. Forster, with the exception that Mr. B— brushes his hair—a process which evidently our Bradford M.P. disdained. This morning I have shaken hands with the President at the White House—a modest building not larger than our Mansion House, and, like that, interesting for its many associations. Mr. Arthur is in the prime of life—a tall, well-made man, with dark-brown hair and eyes, of rather sluggish temperament, apparently. He did not say much to me, nor, I imagine, does he say much to anybody. His plan seems to be to hear and see as much, and say as little as he can. We met in a room upstairs, where, from ten to eleven, he is at home to Congress men, who would see him on public affairs before Congress meets, as eleven in the morning is the usual hour when it commences business. There were seven or eight waiting to speak to the President as he stood up at his table, so as to get the light on his visitors’ faces, while his own was shaded as much as possible; and, owing to the heat in Washington, the houses are kept so shaded that, coming out of the clear sunlight, it is not always easy at the first glance to see where you are. The President did not seem particularly happy to see anybody, and looked rather bored as the Senators and Congress men buttonholed him. Of course, our conversation was strictly private and confidential, and wild horses shall never tear the secret from me. Posterity must remain in the dark. It is one of those questions never to be revealed, as much so as that which so provoked the ancients as to the song the syrens sang to Ulysses. The President’s enemies call him the New York dude, because he happens to be a gentlemanly-looking man, and patronises Episcopalianism, which in America, as in England, is reckoned “the genteel thing.” The Americans are hard to please. Mr. James Russell Lowell had got the gout, and the New York writers said, when I was there, he had attained the object of a snob’s ambition. It is thus they talked of one of their country’s brightest ornaments. But to return to the President. He is a wise man, and keeps his ears open and his mouth shut—a plan which might be adopted