“I assure you, Mrs. Cameron, your flattery is very sweet. Elsie and I do not remember our mother, and all this friendly criticism is more than welcome.”
“Mamma, Captain Stoneman asks me to go with him and his sister to-night to see the President at the theatre. May I go?”
“Will the President be there, Captain?” asked Mrs. Cameron.
“Yes, Madam, with General and Mrs. Grant—it’s really a great public function in celebration of peace and victory. To-day the flag was raised over Fort Sumter, the anniversary of its surrender four years ago. The city will be illuminated.”
“Then, of course, you can go. I will sit with Ben. I wish you to see the President.”
At seven o’clock Phil called for Margaret. They walked to the Capitol hill and down Pennsylvania Avenue.
The city was in a ferment. Vast crowds thronged the streets. In front of the hotel where General Grant stopped the throng was so dense the streets were completely blocked. Soldiers, soldiers, soldiers, at every turn, in squads, in companies, in regimental crowds, shouting cries of victory.
The display of lights was dazzling in its splendour. Every building in every street, in every nook and corner of the city, was lighted from attic to cellar. The public buildings and churches vied with each other in the magnificence of their decorations and splendour of illuminations.
They turned a corner, and suddenly the Capitol on the throne of its imperial hill loomed a grand constellation in the heavens! Another look, and it seemed a huge bonfire against the background of the dark skies. Every window in its labyrinths of marble, from the massive base to its crowning statue of Freedom, gleamed and flashed with light—more than ten thousand jets poured their rays through its windows, besides the innumerable lights that circled the mighty dome within and without.
Margaret stopped, and Phil felt her soft hand grip his arm with sudden emotion.