The letter and the check brought great delight. They were duly acknowledged and the President told of the details of the party. After the feast was finished, the children were provided with tiny bottles of champagne, from which a toast was drunk to “Our new President, Grover Cleveland,” and certainly no other toast carried more unselfish affection and sincere good wishes for the new President than the one from the Convent pupils, who also sent him a telegram of congratulation to the White House on the evening of Inauguration Day. Preparations to make the inaugural ball of the new Democratic President outstrip all of its predecessors had gone on for months. The new Pension Building, recently completed, was chosen for the affair. New York decorators transformed the interior into an extravagantly beautiful scene. Ferns, palms, flags, and draperies, costing thousands of dollars, covered walls and arches. In the President’s room stood a huge throne chair made of flowers, while a gigantic globe, also of flowers, was made to represent the State, the War, and the Navy departments, and flower scales, the Department of Justice. The Marine Band, under the direction of John Philip Sousa, furnished dance music for more than two thousand couples. Eight thousand people attended this ball, and while the highly waxed dancing hall measured three hundred by one hundred and sixteen feet, there was never at any time during the entire evening room on the floor for all those desiring to dance. President Cleveland, his sister, Miss Rose Cleveland, who came from Holland Patent to preside over the White House for her bachelor brother, with Vice President and Mrs. Hendricks, attended for a short time. While such of the populace as paid five dollars per ticket danced at the President’s ball, the rest of the city enjoyed the fireworks on the ellipse south of the White House. The following evening, a band concert in the Pension Building drew another crowd, who cheerfully paid the admission fee to see the rooms and their decorations. Cleveland had not come into office unopposed. When it had become evident that President Arthur would not be nominated to succeed himself, Republican attention had again turned to James G. Blaine, who had been nursing presidential ambitions for a number of years, and who was the outstanding leader of that party. The National Republican Convention assembled in Chicago on June 3, 1884, with no organized opposition to threaten the prospects of Mr. Blaine, who was nominated, early in the course of the proceedings. Having a coloured man as temporary chairman was the unusual feature of this convention, the office being filled by John R. Lynch, former representative from Mississippi. Ex-Senator John B. Henderson, of Missouri, was the permanent chairman. General John A. Logan (“Black Jack”), was nominated as the running mate of Blaine. Their nicknames, the “Plumed Knight” and the “Black Eagle,” formed the basis for some of the campaign jingles.