The political skies were then beginning to cloud up in earnest; he had a Democratic Congress to prepare messages for, and I suppose the approaching winter looked anything but alluring to him.

For the first time in the history of the Executive Mansion it was turned into a bachelors’ hall during my various absences. My husband always had one or more men staying with him, he would move his aides and secretaries into the White House, and so arrange things that my frequent desertions of him never weighed very heavily on my conscience.