“I destroyed it, Mr. President,” Hay said. “I was afraid that the infamous thing might be seen by some of your family.” “Useless precaution, Johnny. I have a son in Boston, and I suspect that he keeps his mother supplied with interesting clippings. My friend, if to be the big boss of Hell is as tough as what I have to undergo here, I can feel mighty sorry for Satan. Come along and have lunch with me, if you will, sir. I reckon they’ve put the big pot in the little one by this time. John, will you see if Mrs. Lincoln is ready for lunch?” “I believe Mrs. Lincoln went out, Mr. President. Mr. Nicolay ordered out the carriage and the black team.” “And an escort?” “Oh, yes, sir—the lieutenant arranged an escort.” Mary would like that, Abraham Lincoln was thinking as they went down the chilly stairs. Fires burned in all the rooms but the ceilings were high and the walls cold and this was a bleak day with the lowering chill of late December. A few snowflakes timidly rode down the icy air, but Mary would wrap herself in rich furs, her round pink face nestled in a deep collar, a stylish bonnet perched on her smooth dark hair. With white-gloved hands—smooth now, but once they had known a time of rough domestic toil—she would wave brief salutes to the people in the street. He hoped she wouldn’t be haughty about it. He knew her shyness and uncertainty, her feeling of insecurity in a high place for which she had had so little training, and that too often she hid this uncertainty behind a too glib, too tart attitude of arrogance. To Abraham Lincoln’s eyes, to his sensitive insight, it was like seeing a nervous little hen strut and bridle surrounded by the cold angry eyes of foxes and the sharp talons of hawks. There were, unhappily, too many people who misunderstood Mary Todd Lincoln. Even John Hay had little sympathy for the President’s wife. There had been a scrap of paper that Lincoln had found once, part of a letter Hay had begun and discarded calling Mary a “Hellcat” and adding dryly that she was lately more “hellcatical” than usual. Too bad Mary occasionally indulged in temper tantrums in the executive offices. Her small explosions, her husband knew, were a form of relief for the eternally seething doubts of herself that tormented her. She adored her husband and the two boys that had been spared to them, but this love was fiercely jealous and possessive and not always wise or controlled.