"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 stove-pipe. It wasn't high enough to walk straight. I don't like Alexandria. It's all mud and secessionists. People looked cross, and Joy was afraid they'd shoot us. We saw the house where Col. Ellsworth was shot at the beginning of the war. The man was very polite, and showed us round. The plastering around the place where he fell, and all the stairs, had been cut away by people as relics. We saw the church where Gen. Washington used to go, too."
JOY'S JOURNAL
"Wednesday Night.
"We are just home from Mount Vernon and we've had a splendid time. We went in a steamboat; it's some way from Washington. You can go by land, if you want to. It was real pleasant. Gen. Washington's house was there,—a queer, low old place, and we went all over it. There was a nice garden, and beautiful grounds, with woods clear down to the water. He is buried on the place under a marble tomb, with a sort of brick shed all around it. There is nothing on the tomb but the word Washington. His wife is buried by him, and it says on hers, Martha, Consort of Washington. All the gentlemen took off their hats while we stood there. To-morrow we are going to Manassas, if there is a boat. Uncle is going to see. I am having a splendid time. Won't it be nice telling father all about it when he comes home?"
