“Mrs. Stover assisted the President, and won golden opinions from sensible people for her faultless taste, and high-necked costume in a large crowd of bare busts. Elderly ladies, whose truthful wrinkles, despite their raven locks, betrayed their years, stood about her in low bodices, exposing to view shoulders long ago bereft of beauty and symmetry. Mothers, whose daughters walked beside them, in similar attire, gathered about her in their flashing diamonds and expensive apparel, but no peer of hers eclipsed her rich simplicity. Alone she stood, so tastefully arrayed that the poor who came were not abashed by her presence, nor the rich offended by her rarer _toilette_. The perfect harmony of her appearance pleased the eyes of all.” The spirit of these comments redeems them from the faintest touch of Jenkinsism. In this connection, it is easy to understand the comment of a woman of fashion, on Mrs. Stover. She said: “She has very fine points, which would make any woman a _belle_, if she knew how to make the most of them.” The state dinners given by President Johnson, were never surpassed in any administration. They were conducted on a generous, almost princely scale, and reflected lasting honor upon his daughter, to whom was committed the entire care and arrangement of every social entertainment. Simple and democratic in her own personal tastes, Mrs. Patterson had a high sense of what was due to the position, and to the people, from the family of the President of a great Nation. This sense of duty and justice led her to spare no pains in her management of official entertainments, and the same high qualities made her keep the White House parlors and conservatories open and ready for the crowds of people who daily visited them, at any cost to her own taste or comfort. The following sketch of the last state dinner given by President Johnson, written by a personal friend, is so vivid and life-like, bringing the historic house so near, in the closing hours of an administration, I am constrained to give it to you: “Late in the afternoon, I was sitting in the cheerful room occupied by the invalid mother, when Mrs. Patterson came for me to go and see the table. The last state dinner was to be given this night, and the preparation for the occasion had been commensurate with those of former occasions. “I looked at the invalid, whose feet had never crossed the apartment to which we were going, and by whom the elegant entertainments, over which her daughters presided, were totally unenjoyed. Through the hall, and down the stairway, I followed my hostess, and stood beside her in the grand old room.