hed with deep feeling:

"I want to thank you personally, Miss Betty, for your kind words about
my Inaugural. They helped and cheered me in a trying moment."

"I'm glad," was the smiling answer.

"Tell me everything you said about it?" he urged laughingly.

"I'm afraid Mrs. Lincoln might not like it!" she said demurely.

"We'll risk it. I'm going to take you in to see her in a minute. I want
her to know you. Tell me, what else did you say?"

He spoke with the eager wistfulness of a boy. It was only too plain that
few messages of good cheer had come to lighten the burden his
responsibilities had brought.

A smile touched her eyes with tender sympathy:

"You won't be vain if I tell you exactly what I said, Mr. President?"

"After all the brickbats that have been coming my way?" he laughed. No
man could laugh with more genuine hearty enjoyment. His laughter
convulsed his whole being for the moment and fairly hypnotized his
hearer into sympathy with his mood.

"Out with it, Miss Betty, I need it!" he urged.

"I said, Mr. President, that you were very tender and very strong----"
she paused and looked straight into his deep set eyes "----and that a
great man had appeared in our history."

He was still for a moment and a mist veiled the light at which she
gazed. He took her hand in both his, pressed it gently and murmured:

"Thank you, Miss Betty, I shall try to prove worthy of my little
champion."

"I think you do things without trying, Mr. President," she answered.

"And you don't want an office, do you?"

"No."

"You have no favors to ask for your friends, have you?"

"None whatever."

"And you're Senator Winter's daughter?"

"Yes."

"The old grizzly bear! He hates me--but I've always liked him----"

"I hope you'll always like him," Betty quickly broke in.

"Of course I will. I've never cherished resentments. Life's too short,
and the office I fill is too big for that. Do you know why I've sent for
you?"

Betty smiled:

"To have me flatter you, of course. All men are vain. The greater the
man, the greater his vanity."

Again he laughed with every muscle of his face and body.

"Honestly--no, that's not the reason," he said confidentially. "I want
you to accept a position in my Cabinet."

"I didn't know that women were admitted?"

"They're not, but I've always been in favor of votes for women and I'm
going to make a place for you."

Betty's lips trembled with a smile:

"What's the salar