Being of the South, she was naturally interested in every practical progressive movement that related to that section, and the indorsement she gave to the work of the Southern mountaineer women was the best thing that could have befallen them. Like all people with any self-respect these women did not want charity. They wanted only opportunity to show their beautiful, old-fashioned hand-made rugs, carpets, curtains, and counterpanes to people who might be interested in buying them. Mrs. Wilson allowed them to fit up a room in the White House with their handiwork, and she exploited it by telling her friends and having the women of Congress and the Cabinet come to tea and inspect the exhibit and talk to the weavers themselves. The result was order after order for the quaint work from the toil-worn hands of these women, who have preserved a lost art in the remote fastnesses of their mountain homes, and to whom the chance to sell their work for real money, not trade it for supplies, was the greatest boon the President’s wife could confer. When her daughters were married, Mrs. Wilson purchased numerous pieces of this old-fashioned handwork to be included among her gifts to them. To the poorhouse, she constantly sent flowers. Never before did the poor of Washington receive so liberally of the floral beauties of the White House conservatories. In hospitals and orphan asylums she was “an angel,” and to the little newsboys of the street, for she would buy their papers and laugh away their return change. A fall due to a slipping rug brought Mrs. Wilson to her bed toward the close of her busy season. Already worn by the social strain, she was attacked by a complication of ailments chief of which was Bright’s disease, that defied the best medical attention. It soon became known that the President’s wife could not recover. Her daughter Eleanor’s marriage to William Gibbs McAdoo took place under this shadow. The night before her death she recalled her interest in the alleys and slums and mentioned to the President that it would give her much happiness if the pending bill could be passed. The alley bill passed the Senate unanimously, and the fact was made known to Mrs. Wilson during a period of consciousness about two hours before she died. The hurried adjournment of Congress following her death prevented the bringing up of the bill in the House at that time; but that body approved the measure later. All through her illness, her constant and chief concern was that the President be kept in ignorance of her suffering. Toward the end, she put a charge upon Dr. Cary Grayson, saying: “If I go away, Doctor, promise me you will take care of my husband.”