While the General was sick on his lounge, and when Peg tired of reading, she would fall to a review of the unremitting politeness bestowed upon her by the suave Van Buren. One might read the pleasure of the General over these tidings in his relaxed face and the heed he offered to each detail. The word of how Van Buren had brought Vaughn of the English and Krudener of the Russians--for these ministers were joint despots among the legation folk and led them to what social fields they would--gave the General peculiar satisfaction; and if there remained a door in his affections which had not yet opened to the little Knickerbocker, Peg's recitals of the secretary's steady yet delicately balanced goodness threw it wide. When the General and I were alone with our nightly pipes--albeit he at the time would be in his bed for sickness--he made his little premier the great burden of his conversation and was wont to find in him new excellencies. Time and again he would quote Peg to me for virtues owned of Van Buren and which he feared might otherwise elude my notice. It was clear “the good little secretary”--Peg's name--was become a first favorite of the General; and to be frank, and for identical reasons, as much should be said of me. I loved any who was good to Peg, and made no bones of showing it. Wherefore, you are to conceive, there arose no dispute between us; instead, we took turn and turn about in exalting our secretary and teaching each other a higher account of the man. Peg would set forth to the General--it amused him and he would question her concerning such matters--how in this sort or in that, and always in some way of trifles too small for the mind of a man to seize on, the women who followed the social banner of the Vice-President's wife would strive to drive her into obscurity. And this was not wanting of stern effect on the General. The name Calhoun found constant repetition in these tales, and never to give the General delight. And there is this to observe: while Peg spoke of Mrs. Calhoun, the General, for his side, would be thinking only on the Vice-President, and at the end he held even more hateful views of the Carolinian than of Henry Clay himself. Surely, he came finally to be strung like a bow against him. This vivacity of disfavor for Calhoun, however, may have had its story. Clay was a foe beaten beyond question, powerless for further war. Calhoun, on the other hand, was increasing in power; and, active in design and searching for the future, stood forth as an enemy yet to be conquered. “The man is a would-be traitor,” said the General one day when speaking with me of Calhoun and his lines of political resolve. “He should consider, however; I may yet teach him a better patriotism.” “He is for your destruction,” said I, “and has been since the Seminole days.”