From morning until the hour of adjournment we would sit, spellbound, as one after another drew the lurid picture of disunion and war. Our social lines were now strictly drawn between North and South. Names were dropped from visiting lists, occasions avoided on which we might expect to meet members of the party antagonistic to our own. My friend Mrs. Douglas espoused all her husband's quarrels and distinctly "cut" his opponents. There were very few boxes to be had at our little theatre—and the three best were usually secured by Mrs. Douglas, Miss Harriet Lane, and Mrs. John R. Thompson. The feud between the President and Judge Douglas was bitter, and Mrs. Douglas never appeared at Miss Lane's receptions in the winter of 1859-1860. One evening we were all in our theatre boxes, Miss Lane next to us, and I the guest of Mrs. Douglas. Mr. Porcher Miles, member from South Carolina, who had opposed Judge Douglas's nomination, appeared at the door of our box. Instantly Mrs. Douglas turned and said, "Sir, you have made a mistake. Your visit is intended for next door!" "Madam," said Mr. Miles, "I presumed I might be permitted to make my respects to Mrs. Pryor, for whom my call was intended." I had the benefit, of course, of the private opinions of each, and was able to be the friend of each. "This, I suppose, is Southern chivalry," said my fair friend. "It savors, I think, of ill-bred impertinence." "I had supposed her a lady," said Mr. Miles, "or at least a woman of the world. She behaved like a rustic—an _ingénue_." I could but receive their confidences in silence, perfectly well knowing that both were in the wrong. Both were betrayed by the mad passions of the hour—passions which caused older heads to misunderstand, mislead, and misbehave! "I am the most unpopular man in the country," said Judge Douglas (one of the presidential candidates); "I could walk from Boston to Chicago by the light of my own burning effigies,—and I guess you all know how much Virginia loves me." I had the good fortune to retain some of my Northern friends. The family of the Secretary of State was loyal to me to the end. When my husband was once embroiled in a violent quarrel, growing out of sectional feeling, General Cass sent his granddaughter, pretty Lizzie Ledyard (my prime favorite), with his love to bid me "take heart," that "all would turn out right." Mrs. Douglas never abated one jot of her gentle kindness, although she knew we belonged to a party adverse to her husband. Mrs. Horace Clark's little brown ponies stopped as often as ever at my door to secure me for a drive down the avenue and a seat beside her in the House. She had been a Miss Vanderbilt and was now wife of a member from New York. All of them were prompt to congratulate me upon my husband's speech on "the state of the country," and to praise it with generous words as "calm, free from vituperation, eloquent in pleading for peace and forbearance."