When the winter came and the social season opened, the contest naturally intensified. Ingham, Branch, and Berrien gave large parties from which Mrs. Eaton was excluded, while “on the other hand the President made her doubly conspicuous by an over display of notice.”[302] At one of the President’s drawing-rooms she was surrounded by a crowd eager to please the host, but Mrs. Donelson, mistress of the White House, held aloof. This rebellion under his own roof caused the aged President the deepest pain. Adams records a melodramatic appeal by Van Buren to Mrs. Donelson, which was highly colored by the ardent Pepys, but such an appeal was made.[303] The effect of the fight was disastrous to the Administration. The members of the Cabinet were speedily involved by their wives, and for a time Eaton and Branch did not speak. It was at this juncture that Jackson determined to intervene, and “to bring them to speaking terms.”[304] His intermediary for the purpose, Colonel Richard M. Johnson,[305] was not a Talleyrand, and his lack of tact in his talks with Branch, Berrien, and Ingham made matters all the worse. When the relations of the Cabinet members became threatening, Jackson demanded that they meet and reach a basis for official intercourse at least. The meeting was held at the home of Berrien, attended by Branch, Eaton, and Barry. The negotiations were conducted with dignity and decorum, Branch satisfactorily explained invitations to the ministers who had accused Eaton’s wife, and the two shook hands as a token of reconciliation.[306] Meanwhile Congress was in session. All attempts to hold Cabinet meetings had long been abandoned. The lines were drawn tightly. The slights and indignities to Mrs. Eaton had become all but intolerable. And much was being heard of the alleged frailty and indiscretions of Mrs. Ingham--stories that seem to have been well known at the time, but to have been given renewed currency by Eaton.[307]