“And I am to order you and your White House up and down in my campaign?” cried Peg, sparkling forth. “Have I not told you how you are to be a despot?” “And I may have a dinner, a reception, or a dance, or what I will--the carpets up in the East Room, if I choose?” “Your word shall be as Aladdin magic among us, your very hint a law.” “Well, then,” cried Peg, whose smile was a bright comrade for the General's, “well, then, now that I am clothed of this high estate, I must not begin by being rash. Let me consider!” And with that Peg put her little hand to her brow with such another air of jaunty profundity I would have clinked down a fortune to have had her on canvas just as she sat--Peg, in the great chair that but an hour gone was mocking me as my most hateful enemy, and which now would be the friendliest thing in life. CHAPTER XII--HOW PEG WOULD WEAR THE CORAL. This is how I shall do,” said Peg at last, and after the General and I had waited upon her small profundity for some space; “this shall be my plan. We will have the White House for a reserve, then. The day for our cabinet folk to receive their friends will be Tuesday--the procession begins with the first Tuesday to follow New Year's Day. Our good little Secretary of State has suggested, inasmuch as I am to preside for him, that his house and mine be open only on alternate cabinet days. In short, we will receive together. On one Tuesday he will be at my house; on the next, when my house is closed, I will take stand in his drawing room and receive our guests for him. You know, too, how I am to be the head for what functions occur at the British and Russian legations and act as Lady of the Mansion for our friends, the Viscount Vaughn and Baron Krudener. Thus I begin with a double reception in my house for the good little secretary and myself; then at Krudener's; then at the good little secretary's; and then with the English. After that, we commence again at my own home.” “And when do you march my White House upon this desperate field?” demanded the General, with much gaiety of mien. Peg's vivacious recount of how she should move her social troops delighted him no little. “In what manner will I be made of use?” “Why, then,” said Peg, “after the reception at the English house if you will, you may give me a dinner, with a dance in the big East Room?” This was spoken in manner dubious and with the lifting inflection of a request. “Also, though it be much to ask, I could wish mightily for you to come in person to my reception. It would be a most convincing initial.” “And you doubt my coming?” asked the General, beamingly. “It would be most unusual for a president,” said Peg, shaking warning head. “The gossips would scarce survive the shock of it.” “My life,” observed the General, in a most satisfied way, “has been made up of shocks to other folk.”