The White House underwent another grand refurbishing while the Taylors were in it. The east room was newly carpeted, its walls were decorated, and gas replaced its candles and lamps. The ladies of the family were good housekeepers--particularly the younger daughter, who made the old place look actually homelike, and whom an appreciative guest described as doing the honors “with the artlessness of a rustic belle and the grace of a duchess.” But this pleasant picture was soon to be clouded over. On the fourth of July, 1850, a patriotic meeting was held at the base of the Washington National Monument, with long addresses by prominent men. It lasted the whole of a very hot afternoon, and President Taylor, as a guest of honor, felt bound to stay through it, refreshing himself from time to time with copious drafts of ice-water. He reached home in a state of some exhaustion and at once ate a basketful of cherries and drank several glasses of iced milk. From a party to which he had accepted an invitation for that evening he was obliged to excuse himself at the last moment on the score of indisposition. He was violently ill throughout the night, and five days later he died. Millard Fillmore of New York, fifty years old, of moderate political views and fair ability, was Vice-president at the time. Unlike Tyler, he went to the Capitol to be sworn in the presence of a committee of the two houses, but made no inaugural address. Mrs. Fillmore, who had formerly been a teacher, cared little for society. She was of studious habits and soon converted the oval sitting room in the second story of the White House into a library, personally selecting the books. Her taste ran chiefly to standard historical and classical works; and, as the editions then available were generally not very good specimens of the typographic art, most of her collection has disappeared. In this administration the Fugitive Slave Act was passed, and Fillmore, by signing it, alienated the North so largely that the Whig party refused to nominate him for another term. General Scott, to whom it turned, did precisely what most of the politicians had predicted he would: made a number of public utterances which ruined his chances and thus gave the election to his Democratic competitor, Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire.