At least it may be stated that this meeting was held in the autumn of the year 1850, and in one of the great public buildings of the city of Washington. Apparently it was more private than official in its nature, and apparently it now had lasted for some time. The hour was late. Darkness presently must enshroud the room. Even now the shadows fell heavy upon the lofty portraits, the rich furnishings, the mixed assemblage of somewhat hodgepodge decorations. Twice an ancient colored man had appeared at the door with lighted taper, as though to offer better illumination, but each time the master of the place had waved him away, as though unwilling to have present a witness even so humble as he. Through the door, thus half opened, there might have been seen in the hall two silent and motionless figures, standing guard. Obviously the persons here present were of importance. It was equally obvious that they sought no intrusion. Why, then, in a meeting so private and so serious, should there come a remark upon a topic certainly not a matter of state in the usual acceptance of the term? Why should the leader have been concerned over the slight matter of a woman's late presence here in Washington? As though to question his associates, the speaker turned his glance down the long table, where sat figures, indistinct in the gathering gloom. At his right hand, half in shadow, there showed the bold outlines of a leonine head set upon broad shoulders. Under cavernous brows, dark eyes looked out with seriousness. Half revealed as it was, here was a countenance fairly fit to be called godlike. That this presence was animated with a brain whose decision had value, might have been learned from the flitting gaze of the leader which, cast now on this or the other, returned always to this man at the right. There were seven gentlemen of them in all, and of these all were clad in the costume of the day, save this one, who retained the fashion of an earlier time. His coat might have come from the Revolution, its color possibly the blue of an earlier day. The trousers fitted close to massive and shapely limbs, and the long waistcoat, not of a modish silk, was buff in color, such as might one time have been worn by Washington himself. This man, these men, distinguished in every line, might have been statesmen of an earlier day than that of Calhoun, Clay and Benton. Yet the year of 1850, that time when forced and formal peace began to mask the attitude of sections already arrayed for a later war, might have been called as important as any in our history. The ranks of these men at the table, too, might have been called arranged as though by some shrewd compromise. Even a careless eye or ear might have declared both sections, North and South, to have been represented here. Grave men they were, and accustomed to think, and they reflected, thus early in Millard Fillmore's administration, the evenly balanced political powers of the time.