The elevator which was put in for “Grandma Garfield,” she never returned to the White House to use. The dreariest place, perhaps, under the roof, is the shabby, forlorn little cloak room, in which Minister Allen fell dead last January a year ago, at the New Year’s reception. It is not an uninteresting spectacle, to stand just within the vestibule on Cabinet day, and observe the arrival of the nation’s arbiters, sandwiched between the throng. Perhaps a slight murmur is heard, and strangers turn toward the entrance. It might be a pleasant-faced countryman in his plain black clothes, but instead it is the Honorable Secretary of the Interior. Next, a stylish coupé, with an iron-gray horse, from which Postmaster-General Gresham and his chief clerk alight. The Postmaster-General is in the stalwart prime of life. He is tall and commanding, with strongly marked features. Immediately following him is a British tourist, with a glass screwed in his eye, who pauses to ask, before entering the East Room, “What do you call that cold-looking place there?” Then the Spanish Minister enters and passes so slowly up the stairway that one is involuntarily reminded of the inevitable _manana_ (to-morrow) of his people, not one of whom has ever been in a hurry since the beginning of time. No matter what the service required of these children of the sun, unless a compelling power supplements the order, “_Manana, manana_,” is the response. Another carriage rattles over the pavement, and a pale, spare man, with a white fringe under his chin, and close cropped hair, with a mysterious gloom upon his countenance, and bent, as if, like Atlas, he upbore the world upon his shoulders—passes with such an air as has never been known outside of the State Department. There they all have it in greater or less degree, messengers, clerks, and assistant secretaries. It is indescribable, but it is admirable. Even the high-stepping bay horses appear to be distinctly conscious of their position. Next in order comes Attorney-General Brewster, who is without doubt the most gorgeous man in Washington. I say gorgeous advisedly. He wears an immense expanse of buff vest, a dark necktie, illuminated by a pin of diamonds clustering around a ruby center, light drab pantaloons, and lace ruffles about his wrists. Secretary Folger has the aristocratic appearance which is the legitimate birthright of those wonderful old Nantucket families and their descendants. I need not ask you to pause longer at the entrance; the other notabilities are out of town to-day.