I guess Miss Cardrew would give it to me. But what I
thought was queerest of all, they all talked right _at_ the
Vice-President, and kept saying, 'Mr. President,' and 'Sir,' just as if
there weren't anybody else in the room.

"Some of the Senators are handsome, and a good many more aren't. Joy
stood up for Mr. Sumner because he came from Massachusetts. He _is_ a
nice-looking man, and I had to say so. He has a high forehead, and he
looks exactly like a gentleman. Besides, father says he has done a noble
work for the country and the slaves, and the rest of New England ought
to be just as proud of him as Massachusetts.

"We went into the House of Representatives, too, and it was a great deal
noisier there than it was in the Senate, there were so many more of
them. I saw one man eating peanuts. Most all of them looked hungry. The
man that sits up behind the desk and takes care of the House, is called
the Speaker. I think it's real funny, because he never makes a speech.
As we came out of the Capitol, father turned round and looked back and
said: 'Just think! All the laws that govern this great country come out
from there.' He said some more about it, too, but there was the funniest
little negro boy peeking through the fence, and I didn't hear.

"We went to the White House next. Father says it's something like a
palace, only some palaces are handsomer. It's white marble like the
Capitol. We went up the steps, and a man let us right in. We saw two
rooms. One is called the Red Room and one the Green Room.

The Red Room is furnished in red damask and the Green is all green. They
were very handsome, only all the furniture was ranged along the walls,
and that made it seem so big and empty. Father says that's because these
rooms are used for receptions, and there is such a crowd.

"There is a Blue Room, too, that visitors are sometimes let into. Father
asked the doorkeeper; but he said, 'The family were at breakfast in it.'
That was _eleven o'clock_! I guess I'd like to be a President's
daughter, and not have to get up. We didn't see anything more of
President Lincoln.

"We've been going all day, and we've been to the Patent Office and the
Smithsonian Institute, but I'm too tired to say anything about them."

GYPSY'S JOURNAL.

"Tuesday.

"We've been over to Alexandria--that's across the Potomac River--in
the funniest little steamboat you ever saw. When you went in or came out
of the cabin, you have to crawl under a stov