“I am requested by General Dent to show this lady to your room.” The servant immediately disappeared through the open door. General Badeau glanced at the writer from head to foot, his eyes instantly reverted to the papers, and his mouth, which had never opened, seemed fastened like those of the sphinx. The situation to the writer became extremely painful, not knowing whether to retreat or advance; but in an instant it was decided to stand firm without flinching a muscle, and await the enemy’s fire. At this moment General Badeau’s assistant kindly inquired if the lady would “have a seat?” The seat was occupied and the foreign sphinx kept at work on his papers. In the meantime the photograph of this foreigner was burned into the writer’s brain. Short and thick set, with the animal neck of a gladiator squatted upon his square shoulders, every visible point about the man indicating his peasant origin, the grim, gray complexion, the small, dead, steel-blue eye and neutral color of hair, a nose which had just escaped a hook, and a mouth which nature denied lips, but left it an ugly slit in the face, like a wound which could not be made to heal. The embarrassment became almost unendurable, the silence horrible, but the writer sat with folded hands “determined to fight it out on that line if it took all summer.” As a cannon swings on the gun-carriage, the bore of this military arrangement was brought to bear upon the countenance of the writer. “Did you wish to speak to me?” “No, sir; I came to the White House to see Mrs. Grant. General Dent has consigned me to your care. What are you going to do with me?” “You wish to see Mrs. Grant? That is not so easy a matter. Would you allow me to know the nature of your business? We do not allow Mrs. Grant to be subjected to annoyance.” “I have not the slightest intention to annoy Mrs. Grant. I have no favors to ask, or axes to grind. I should never have ventured over the threshold of the White House had I understood military law. I was accustomed to meet Andy Johnson as though he were still an unpretending citizen of the Republic; and Mrs. Patterson allows the intimacy of a personal friend.” “What shall I call your name?” A card was handed the General and he read aloud “Mrs. Emily Briggs.” “Allow me to say a word,” said General Badeau’s assistant. “If I am not mistaken, I think this is ‘Olivia,’ correspondent of the Philadelphia _Press_ and other prominent newspapers.” The writer bowed in simple recognition. The General raised his eyebrows with another supercilious glance at the writer’s person, and without the slightest notice of the interruption simply answered, “In that case I shall have to turn you over to General Porter.” Some more footfalls over the tufted floors and the office of General Porter was reached, but the change was like that of the living skeleton into the fat woman and mud into polished marble; of charcoal into diamonds.