A plain, dignified, matronly woman stood next to Mrs. Hayes. A lace cap--Quaker-like in its simplicity--rested on her snowy hair, a self-trimmed black silk dress (for Mrs. Evarts has not wholly discarded mourning for a beloved son) made one of the simplest toilettes to be found in the crowded throng. A whole head and shoulders above Mrs. Evarts stood Mrs. Secretary Sherman--one of those creations which can be compared to the lilies of the field in purity of style and stately grace--occupying the middle ground between blonde and brunette, her tawny hair, with its natural wave gathered in the low, Greek coil, without comb or ornament of any kind. A simple black dress, relieved at the throat with illusion ruchings, she seemed the personified embodiment of one of Tennyson’s poems: “Tall and divinely fair.” Not a beautiful woman, but one created with so much harmony that the whole mortal statue would have to be pulled apart to remedy the defect. Mrs. Sherman would make a most admirable “first lady”--the very best of all the candidates now in the field--for in all the years of her husband’s official life at the capital her unostentatious charity, her kindly deeds to the worthy and deserving, have enshrined her as a patron saint in many a widow’s heart. Imagine an English duchess who has inherited the rare beauty which descends with hereditary rank. Why are the English nobility the finest specimens of personal beauty? It is because its members leave nothing undone to perfect the physical proportions of the race. Of English origin, Mrs. Ramsey brings to the Cabinet any amount of that material which this administration lacked most. It has already been whispered by those who ought to know that Governor Ramsey was not called to the war office because of his bloody record, but it was made necessary by the deficiency in the social Cabinet, for while a large number of these society leaders were equal to handshaking, they were not quite strong enough to prevent masculine yawns between the courses at official dinners. The coming of Mrs. Ramsey into the field, even at this late day, if it does not win the battle, will at least prevent a complete rout. Mrs. Ramsey’s long residence at the capital, her superior intelligence and winning ways, is doing much to retard the criticism which ended with the retirement of her predecessor, for it is openly declared that Secretary McCrary was hocus-pocused into a “jedge” because “Mrs. Hayes could stand it no longer.”