Harriet, who was an impressionable child, could hardly contain herself till she reached home and sought her father, to whom she attempted to relate the afternoon’s occurrence. He was the District-attorney, and an intimate of the President’s, and was so immersed in the cares of office that he put her off till he should have more leisure. When she was awakened on Good Friday night by the noise of citizens and soldiers hurrying through the streets and calling out the news of the assassination, she uttered an exclamation which caught her father’s attention, and then he listened to the tale which he had once waved aside. “Why did you not tell me this before?” he demanded. It was then too late to do more than collect such evidence as he might from the pupils to aid the detectives; but the teacher who had uttered that awful prayer had fled and could never be traced. No one could longer doubt her guilty knowledge of the plot, probably acquired during her visit in the South. The oath with which Vice-president Johnson took upon himself the obligations of the Presidency was administered to him at his rooms in the Kirkwood House, a hostelry on the Pennsylvania Avenue corner now occupied by the Hotel Raleigh. Of his administration, the most broadly interesting incident was the impeachment trial described in an earlier chapter; and in our reflections on how history is shaped, another personal anecdote seems worthy of a place. Its heroine was Miss Vinnie Ream, the sculptor, who later became Mrs. Hoxie. As his trial drew near its close, and Johnson’s friends and enemies were able to figure out pretty accurately how the Senate was going to divide, it became plain that the issue would hang on a single vote. If all the Senators counted against the President stood firm, he would be convicted, thirty-six to eighteen; but Secretary Stanton insisted that Ross of Kansas was preparing to go over from the majority to the minority. Ross was occupying a room in the same house with Miss Ream on Capitol Hill, and General Daniel E. Sickles, who was acquainted with him, was deputed to see him on the night before the roll-call and try to hold him fast against the President. Miss Ream happened to meet the General at the door, ushered him into the parlor but refused to let him see the Senator, and held him at bay till dawn the following morning, when he gave up the effort as fruitless and went home. If she had weakened for a moment, there is no telling what might have happened, for Sickles was in a position to have brought very heavy pressure to bear upon Ross. The roll-call showed thirty-five for conviction to nineteen against--less than the two-thirds required to convict; and it was Ross’s vote that saved Johnson.