Harriet Lane was left an orphan at nine years of age, and was brought up by her uncle, James Buchanan, who took great pains with her education. When he became Minister to England in 1852, she accompanied him and was a marked favorite in court and diplomatic circles. She was a handsome blonde of twenty, dignified, graceful, clever and an engaging talker. On her uncle’s return to America, and his subsequent election she became mistress of the White House and was renowned for her charm, good taste and diplomacy. She entertained the Prince of Wales, now King Edward VII, while in America in 1860, and in recognition of this was an especially invited guest at his Coronation Ceremony. Shortly after her return to America she developed symptoms of a serious illness, to which she succumbed in July, 1903. After her uncle passed away, her great sorrows were the deaths of her husband, Henry Elliot Johnston, and her two young sons. [Illustration: _HARRIET LANE_ _Copyright 1903, by Bureau of National Literature & Art._] Mary Todd Lincoln SIXTEENTH PRESIDING LADY 1861-1865 Mary Todd, born in Lexington, Ky., had from girlhood a supreme desire to become mistress of the White House, which, however, did not seem probable when she married Abraham Lincoln in 1842, but later her ambition was realized. She was small, attractive in appearance, inclined to stoutness, self possessed in manner, and would have enjoyed her high position had not the troublous events of the Rebellion prevented all festivities and converted the White House into a public institution. The death of her second son preyed sorely upon her, but when in 1865 her husband was assassinated, the shock was too great, and that, added to the blow of her youngest boy’s death soon after his father’s, partly unsettled her reason. Although she traveled much abroad, she never recovered, mentally or physically. She died of paralysis in her sister’s home at Springfield, Ill., in 1882, and was interred in the Lincoln Monument vault with her husband and children. [Illustration: _MARY TODD LINCOLN_ _Copyright 1903, by Bureau of National Literature & Art._] Eliza McCardle Johnson SEVENTEENTH PRESIDING LADY 1865-1869