We've been giving a few entertainments--informal and not large, but highly important. I had two objects in mind: In the first place, to get Mr. and Mrs. Burke accustomed to the style of hospitality they've got to give if they're going to win out. In the second place, to get certain of the kind of people who are necessary to us in the habit of coming to this house--and those people are not so very hard to get hold of now; later they'll be engaged day and night. For two weeks now I've had my two especial features going. One of them is for the men, the other for the women. And I can see already that they alone would carry us through triumphantly; for they've caught on. My men's feature is a breakfast. I engaged a particularly good cook--the best old-fashioned Southern cook in Washington. Rachel had her, and I persuaded Mr. Derby to consent to giving her up to us, just for this season. Cleopatra--that's her name--has nothing to do but get together every morning by nine o'clock the grandest kind of an old-fashioned American breakfast. And I explained to Senator Burke that he was to invite some of his colleagues, as many as he liked, and tell them to come any morning, or every morning if they wished, and bring their friends. I consult with Cleopatra every day as to what she's to have the next morning; and I think dear old father taught me what kind of breakfast men like. I don't give them too much, or they'd be afraid to come and risk indigestion a second time. I see to it that everything is perfectly cooked--and it's pretty hard for any man to get indigestion, even from corned beef hash and hot cornbread and buckwheat cakes with maple syrup, if it's perfectly cooked and is eaten in a cheerful frame of mind. No women are permitted at these breakfasts--just men, with everything free and easy, plenty to smoke, separate tables, but each large enough so that there's always room at any one of them for one more who might otherwise be uncomfortable. Even now we have from fifteen to twenty men--among them the very best in Washington. In the season we'll have thirty and forty, and our house will be a regular club from nine to eleven for just the right men. My other big feature is an informal dance every Wednesday night. It's already as great a success in its way as the breakfasts are in theirs. I've been rather careful about whom I let Mrs. Burke invite to come in on Wednesdays whenever they like. The result is that everybody is pleased; the affairs seem to be "exclusive," yet are not. I know it will do the Burkes a world of good politically, because a certain kind of people who are important politically but have had no chance socially are coming to us on Wednesdays, and that's just the kind of people who are frantically flattered by the idea that they are "in the push."