Mrs. Lincoln's greeting was simple and hearty. In half an hour Betty had found a place in her heart for life, the boys were claiming her as their own, and a train of influences were set in motion destined to make history. CHAPTER V THE FIRST SHOT The first month of the new administration passed in a strange peace that proved to be the calm before the storm. On the first day of April, All Fool's Day, Mr. Seward decided to bring to a definite issue the question of supreme authority in the government. That Abraham Lincoln was the nominal President was true, of course. Mr. Seward generously decided to allow him to remain nominally at the head of the Nation and assume himself the full responsibilities of a Dictatorship. The Secretary of State strolled leisurely into the executive office more careless in dress than usual, the knot of his cravat under his left ear, a huge lighted cigar in his hand. He handed the President a folded sheet of official paper, bowed carelessly and retired. He had drawn up his proclamation under the title: SOME THOUGHTS FOR THE PRESIDENT'S CONSIDERATION. In this remarkable document he proposed to assume the Dictatorship and outlined his policy as director of the Nation's affairs. He would immediately provoke war with Great Britain, Russia, Spain and France! The dark-visaged giant adjusted his glasses and read this paper with a smile of incredulous amazement. He wiped his glasses and read it again. And then without consultation with a single human being, and without a moment's hesitation he wrote a brief reply to the great man and his generous offer. There was no bluster, no wrath, no demand for an apology to his insulted dignity, but in the simplest and friendliest and most direct language he informed his Secretary that if a dictator were needed to save the country he would undertake the dangerous and difficult job himself inasmuch as he had been called by the people to be their Commander-in-Chief, and that he expected the cooeperation, advice and support of _all_ the members of his Cabinet. He did not even refer to the wild scheme of plunging the country into war with two-thirds of the civilized world. The bare announcement of such a suggestion would have driven the Secretary from public life. The quiet man who presided over the turbulent Cabinet never hinted to one of its members that such a document had reached his hands. But as the shades of night fell over the Capitol on that first day of April, 1861, there was one distinguished statesman within the city who knew that a real man had been elected President and that he was going to wield the power placed in his hands without a tremor of fear or an instant's hesitation. It took many months for other members of his Cabinet to learn this--but there was no more trouble with his Secretary of State. He became at once his loyal, earnest and faithful counsellor.