The evening at the White House, or drawing-room, as it is sometimes pleasantly called, is in fact, a collection of all classes of people who choose to go to the trouble and expense of appearing in dresses suited to an evening party. I am not sure that even dress is very much regarded, for I certainly saw a good many there in boots....Squeezing through a crowd, we achieved a passage to a part of the room where Mrs. Monroe was standing, surrounded by a bevy of female friends. After making our bow here, we sought the President. The latter had posted himself at the top of the room, where he remained most of the evening, shaking hands with all who approached. Near him stood the Secretaries and a great number of the most distinguished men of the nation. Besides these, one meets here a great variety of people in other conditions of life. I have known a cartman to leave his horse in the street, and go into the reception room, to shake hands with the President. He offended the good taste of all present, because it was not thought decent that a laborer should come in a dirty dress on such an occasion; but while he made a mistake in this particular, he proved how well he understood the difference between government and society. It is very doubtful, however, if a cartman would have found it possible to have paid his respects to the government in the person of Washington, in such a plight. Such a visitor in the Blue Room, to-day, would make a sensation. In spite of the “cartman,” we read that at Mrs. Monroe’s drawing-rooms “elegance of dress was absolutely required.” On one occasion, Mr. Monroe refused admission to a near relative, who happened not to have a suit of small-clothes and silk hose, in which to present himself at a public reception. He was driven to the necessity of borrowing. When the Monroes entered the White House, it had been partly rebuilt from its burning in 1814, but it could boast of few comforts, and no elegance. The ruins of the former building lay in heaps about the mansion; the grounds were not fenced, and the street before it in such a condition that it was an hourly sight to see several four-horse wagons “stalled” before the house. In the early part of the administration, the East Room was the play-room of Mrs. Monroe’s daughters. It was during her reign here that the stately furniture, which now stands in the East Room, was bought by the government in Paris. Each article was surmounted by the royal crown of Louis XVIII. This was removed, and the American Eagle took its place. These chairs and sofas have more than once been “made over, good as new,” but the original eagles remain, more brightly burnished than ever. May they gleam forever, and let no “modern furniture,” with surface gilding and thin veneering, take the place of this historic furniture, in the Nation’s house, fraught, as it is, with so many memories of the illustrious dead.