We now passed into the Cabinet room, where we were introduced to Mr. James Wilson, for the last thirteen years Secretary of Agriculture.
“Sit in my chair, Mrs. Elliott,” was his greeting. “We shall have women in the Cabinet some day, you know.”
When Mr. MacVeagh told him I was Mother’s daughter, he almost hugged me; he seemed to feel the magic of her name more than any of them.
“Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!” he quoted. Mr. Wilson looks much older than the others. He seems a man of real weight, with an impressive personality. He is tall, grave, and cavern-eyed. How he must have suffered from the battering of the Ballinger-Pinchot controversy! I showed him a photograph of Mama.
“I never saw her,” he said; “but she looks just as I thought she would.”
“I brought this for our Unitarian President,” I confessed, “but I did not have the courage to give it him.”
“Let me have the honor,” Mr. MacVeagh volunteered.
The Cabinet was now assembled, it was time to leave.
“Thank you all for letting us have a peep at the centre of the big beehive,” I said.
“You are right,” Mr. Nagle exclaimed, “we are all busy as bees.”