Page:An Epistle to Posterity.djvu/41

18 go to Washington first, then, as now, the Mecca of the American girl.

"Washington, March, 184—. ", — We were a week getting here, but I have enjoyed every hour. Father took me to the Astor House, New York, where we met the whole Whig party I should say; Mr. Ashmun, Mr. Geo. T. Davis, and a sweet old gentleman, Judge Story. Mrs. Otis, and Mrs. Bates, were there and very nice to me. I went shopping, in a fine shop, and bought some gloves, and handkerchiefs, and some ribbons. The Astor House is very comfortable, and I saw all the fashion walk by. The Astor House parlor seems the centre of fashion. It is a very grand Hotel, and from the ladies who walk by in red velvet I get a picture of the great people of New York.

"Just think, next Tuesday I shall be in Washington, not to see old Tippecanoe, but only "Tyler too." Father is very cross on that subject. "Ever your loving

"M. E."

To go back a few months, my mother and I had gone through the campaign for "Tippecanoe and Tyler too" in emphatic fashion. We had accompanied my father, who was so favorite a "stump speaker" on the Whig side that wherever he went thousands of people and a military band accompanied us.

We had had the honor of receiving Mr. Webster as our guest in Keene, and he had asked us to visit him at Marshfield, his famous country-seat on the sea. To proceed thither to see our great hero, accompanied by a brass band, was rather exciting for a girl of thirteen, and to be met by Mrs. Webster in her carriage (all in white, a fine-looking, dark-eyed woman) seemed to me to be very distinguished. My mother and a friend were placed in the seat of honor, and I was asked to mount the box in which Mr. Webster was driving himself. To say that I was frightened as those big black eyes swept me up is to state it mildly; but I lived through it, and