Haunted Houses—Shadows of the Past—Touching Memories—The Little Angels Born There—Building of the Presidential Mansion—A State of Perpetual Dampness—Dingy Aspect of a Monarch’s Palace—Outside the White House—A Peep Inside the Mansion—The Emperor of Japan Supersedes the Punch-Bowl—The Unfinished “Banqueting Hall”—Glories of a _Levée_—Magnificent Hospitalities—A Comfortable Dining-Room—Interesting Labors of Martha Patterson—A Lady of Taste—An American “Baronial Hall”—The Furniture of Another Generation—A Valuable Steward—A Professor of Gastronomy—Paying the Professor and Providing the Dinner—Feeding the Celebrities—Mrs. Lincoln’s Unpopular Innovations—Fifteen Hundred Dollars for a Dinner—How Prince Arthur, of England, was Entertained—Domestic Economy—“Not Enough Silver”—A Tasty Soup—The Recipe for an Aristocratic Stew—Having a “Nice Time”—Mrs. Franklin Pierce Horrified—“Going a Fishing on Sundays”—Hatred of Flummery—An Admirer of Pork and Beans and Slap-jacks—A Presidential Reception—Ready for the Festival—“Such a Bore!”—Splendor, Weariness, and Indigestion—Paying the Penalty—In the Conservatory—Domestic Arrangements—The Library—Statue of Jefferson—Pleasant Views—Reminiscence of Abraham Lincoln. “All houses wherein men have lived and died Are haunted houses. Through the open doors The harmless phantoms on their errands glide, With feet that make no sound upon the floors.” “There are more guests at table, than the hosts Invited; the illuminated hall Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts, As silent as the pictures on the wall.” These lines were never truer of any human habitation than of the White House at Washington. The Nation’s House! The procession of families which the people have sent to inhabit it, in moving on to make place for others, have left memories behind which haunt these great rooms and fill staircase, alcove, and pictorial space with historic recollections. Here human life has been lived, enjoyed, suffered and resigned, just as it is lived every day in any house wherein human beings are born, wherein they live and die. Within its walls children have first opened their eyes upon this tantalizing life, and here children have died, leaving father and mother desolate amid all the pomp of place and state. In this room the hero Taylor laid his earthly burdens and honors down; here, by this eastern window, stood a girl-bride crowned with beautiful youth and marriage flowers. In this east room the supreme martyr of freedom, white, still and cold, received the nation who wept at his feet; in this dim chamber a woman-saint read her Bible and communed with God, while pardon crokers crept into secret door-ways, and passion and treason ran riot in the great rooms which she never entered.