Social life experienced a very profound revival, taking its cue from the White House family, as is usual. Mrs. Grant being endowed with exceptional social graces, her régime was one of charming, genial hospitality strongly tinged with the wholesome domesticity that made the President’s house the ideal American home. She loved people, was a charming conversationalist, and all her life had lived in a social atmosphere. She was keenly alive to the interests and events of the hour, and, while typically feminine in every instinct, was also clever and thoroughly conversant with the questions that engrossed her husband; yet she never intruded in his affairs. Her influence with him was paramount through life. He appeared at her morning and afternoon receptions, and together they broke many of the burdensome social precedents that had been fastened upon the incumbents of the White House by previous régimes. The President and his wife dined out. They made calls, if they so desired, and whereas it had not been considered dignified for the President and his wife to attend evening parties, these two settled such matters as their own fancy dictated and lost no social prestige whatever thereby. President Grant flatly refused to be a prisoner in the White House or to be handicapped by customs he considered useless and irksome. At the height of his popularity, when he was in demand everywhere by individuals, groups, and associations who sought to honour him, Mrs. Grant became disturbed over the condition of her right eye, which had been injured in girlhood by a peculiar and distressing accident that occurred while she was boating with a party of young people on the river near her home at White Haven. Through accident or someone’s carelessness, an oar flew up and struck her in the eye. Surgery not being advanced, as it is to-day, the eye never resumed its normal position, being slightly turned. The General would not listen to the suggestion of an operation. He reminded her that he had fallen in love with her with her eyes just as they were, and had been contentedly looking at them for a good many years and did not wish them changed. His veto settled the matter for all time. Mrs. Grant established a new plan for the weekly Cabinet day receptions that became so popular as to be followed more or less by her successors. She invited some of the ladies of the Cabinet, wives of Senators or other officials, as well as visiting friends and celebrities to assist her on these occasions, generally entertaining her receiving party at luncheon on the appointed day. After the Cabinet meeting, the President would join his wife and receive with her. The evening receptions, like those of the Grant home on Minnesota Row, were always packed with an eager, interested crowd.