Christmas would be a sad time for Mary. Last year Willie had been here, the gentle, quiet brown-haired boy who spent so many hours curled up in a chair with a book. Willie had known every railroad line, every station on every line. He had learned timetables by heart and drawn up schedules of his own. It had been just such a raw, dreary day as this last February when Willie had gone riding out on his pony. He had come home soaked and chilled and the nightmare of those next days would haunt Abraham Lincoln as long as he lived—Willie, burning with fever, babbling incoherencies; Mary sobbing and moaning, pacing the floor, her hands in taut, agonized fists, her smooth hair wild over her tear-streaked cheeks; and that ghastly night of the White House ball, with the Marine Band playing, he himself having to shake hands endlessly at the door of the East Room while Willie fought for breath upstairs. After that, the end. The blue eyes closed and sunken, fading flowers pressed by Mary into the small cold hands, senators, generals, foreign ministers, pressing the numb hand of the President of the United States, while upstairs on her bed Mary writhed and wailed in uncontrolled grief. Now Christmas would bring it all back. He was glad that Mary could forget for a little while, shopping, buying gifts for Tad who had too much already, who was in a fair way to be badly spoiled. Deeply, poignantly, Abraham Lincoln dreaded Christmas. All over the land, north and south, would lie a load of sorrow like a grim hand pressing the heart of America, the heart of this tall grave man in the White House. He felt that burden as he walked into the small dining room. Mary had not returned. Tad slid in late and was sent out again to wash himself. The stranger waxed garrulous. “I understand, Mr. President, that you have a plan to widen the breach between Governor Vance of North Carolina and Jefferson Davis, president of this so-called Confederacy?” “That,” said Lincoln, “turned out not too well. Gilmore, of the New York _Tribune_, wrote too much and prematurely. Those fellows across the river got riled up and a Georgia regiment started a riot in Raleigh in September and burned the Raleigh _Standard_. So the citizens of Raleigh who didn’t have faith in Jeff Davis rose up and burned the Confederate newspaper, the _State Journal_. That widened the breach and Vance has already told Jeff Davis that he would welcome reunion with the Union states and any peace compatible with honor.” He caught John Hay’s warning look then and said no more. He would not reveal that his agents has just brought in a letter sent by the Governor of North Carolina to Jefferson Davis—a bold and open plea for negotiation with the enemy. “If North Carolina would make the break it would be a long step toward peace,” said his guest.