"Let's get our seats!" Betty cried.
They had scarcely taken them when a ripple of excitement swept the crowd as every head was turned toward the aisle that led down the centre of the platform.
"Oh, it's Mrs. Lincoln and the children and her sisters!" Betty exclaimed. "What perfect taste in her dress! She knows how to wear it, too. What a typical, plump, self-poised Southern matron she looks. And, oh, those darling little boys—aren't they dears! She's a Kentuckian, too—the irony of Fate! A Southerner with a Southern wife entering the White House and eight great Southern States seceding from the Union because of it. It's a funny world, isn't it?"
"The South hardly claims Mr. Lincoln as a Southerner," Ned remarked dryly.
"Claim it or not, he is," John declared, nodding toward Betty, "as truly a Southerner as Jefferson Davis. They were both born in Kentucky almost on the same day——"
Another ripple of excitement and the Diplomatic Corps entered with measured stately tread, their gorgeous uniforms flashing in the sun. They took their seats on the left of the canopy, Lord Lyons, the British minister, seated beside the representative of the Court of France, two men destined to play their parts in the drama of Life and Death on whose first act the curtain of history was slowly rising.
The black-robed Supreme Court of the Republic, in cap and gown, slowly followed and took their places on the right, opposite the Diplomatic Corps.
The Marine band struck the first notes of the National Hymn amid a silence whose oppressiveness could be felt. The tension of a great fear had gripped the hearts of the crowd with icy fingers. The stoutest soul felt its spell and was powerless to shake it off.
Was it the end of the Republic? Or the storm clouded dawn of a new and more wonderful life? God only could tell, and there were few men present who dared to venture a prediction.
A wave of subdued excitement rippled the throng and every eye was focused on the procession from the Senate Chamber.