XV FORGOTTEN EVENTS OF THE LONG AGO
THE WRITER MEETS MISS GRAHAM, SISTER-IN-LAW OF MR. GILES, A REPRESENTATIVE IN THE DAYS OF WASHINGTON—HIS MEETING WITH THE DAUGHTER OF THOMAS W. GILMER, SECRETARY OF THE NAVY UNDER PRESIDENT TYLER—THE SECRETARY KILLED, AND THE PRESIDENT ENDANGERED BY AN EXPLOSION—SPECULATION AS TO POSSIBLE POLITICAL CHANGES HAD THE PRESIDENT BEEN KILLED.
During my sojourn in Washington I visited the "Louise Home," one of the splendid charities of the late W. W. Corcoran. Two of the ladies I there met were Miss Graham and Miss Gilmer. The turn of Fortune's wheel had brought each of them from once elegant Virginia homes to spend the evening of life in the Home which Mr. Corcoran had so kindly and thoughtfully provided. It was in very truth the welcome retreat to representatives of old Southern families who had known better days. Here in quiet and something of elegant leisure, the years sped by, the chief pastime recalling events and telling over again and again the social triumphs of the long ago. Thus lingering in the shadows of the past, sadly reflecting, it may be, in the silent watches, that—
"The tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me,"
these venerable ladies were in sad reality "only waiting till the shadows had a little longer grown."
There was something pathetically remindful of the good old Virginia days in the manner in which Miss Graham handed me her card and invited me to be seated. Looking me earnestly in the face, she said, "Mr. Vice-President, you must have known my brother-in-law, Governor Giles."
"Do you mean Senator William B. Giles of Virginia?" I inquired.
"Yes, yes," she said, "did you know him?"
"No, madam," I replied, "I did not; he was a member of Congress when Washington was President; that was a little before my day. But is it possible that you are a sister-in-law of Governor Giles?"
"Yes, sir," she answered, "he married my eldest sister and I was in hope that you knew him."