Thus convinced of the success of my costume, I was glad to comply with a request that came by messenger from Miss Lane, for our party to go to the White House on our way to Mrs. Gwin’s, to show her our “pretty dresses,” a point of etiquette intervening to prevent the Lady of the White House from attending the great ball of a private citizen. Forthwith we drove to the Executive Mansion, where we were carried sans cérémonie to Miss Lane’s apartments. Here Mrs. Partington found herself in the presence of her first audience. Miss Lane and the President apparently were much amused at her verdancy, and, after a few initiative malapropisms, some pirouettes by “Titania” and our maid from the Orient, done to the shuffling of our little fortune-teller’s cards, we departed, our zest stimulated, for the Gwin residence.
My very first conquest as Mrs. Partington, as I recall it now, was of Mrs. Representative Pendleton, whom I met on the stairs. She was radiantly beautiful as the “Star-Spangled Banner,” symbolising the poem by which her father, Francis Scott Key, immortalised himself. As we met, her face broke into a smile of delicious surprise.
“How inimitable!” she cried. “Who is it? No! you shan’t pass till you tell me!” And when I laughingly informed her in Aunt Ruthy’s own vernacular, she exclaimed: “What! Mrs. Clay? Why! there isn’t a vestige of my friend left!”
My costume was ingeniously devised. It consisted of a plain black alpaca dress and black satin apron; stockings as blue as a certain pair of indigos I have previously described, and large, loose-fitting buskin shoes. Over my soft grey front piece I wore a high-crowned cap, which, finished with a prim ruff, set closely around the face. On the top was a diminutive bow of narrowest ribbon, while ties of similarly economical width secured it under the chin. My disguise was further completed by a pair of stone-cutter’s glasses with nickel rims, which entirely concealed my eyes. A white kerchief was drawn primly over my shoulders, and was secured by a huge medallion pin, in which was encased the likeness, as large as the palm of my hand, of “my poor Paul.”
On my arm I carried a reticule in which were various herbs, elecampane and catnip, and other homely remedies, and a handkerchief in brilliant colours on which was printed with fearless and emphatic type the Declaration of Independence. This bit of “stage property” was used ostentatiously betimes, especially when Aunt Ruthy’s tears were called forth by some sad allusion to her lost “Paul.” In my apron pocket was an antique snuff-box which had been presented to me, as I afterward told Senator Seward, by the Governor of Rhode Island, “a lover of the Kawnstitution, Sir.”
But, that nothing might be lacking, behind me trotted my boy “Ike,” dear little “Jimmy” Sandidge (son of the member from Louisiana), aged ten, who for days, in the secrecy of my parlour, I had drilled in the aid he was to lend me. He was a wonderful little second, and the fidelity to truth in his make-up was so amusing that I came near to losing him at the very outset. His ostentatiously darned stockings and patched breeches, long since outgrown, were a surprising sight in the great parlours of our host, and Senator Gwin, seeing the little urchin who, he thought, had strayed in from the street, took him by the shoulder and was about to lead him out when some one called to him, “Look out, Senator! You’ll be getting yourself into trouble! That’s Aunt Ruthy’s boy, Ike!”
Mrs. Partington was not the only Yankee character among that throng of princes and queens, and dames of high degree, for Mr. Eugene Baylor, of Louisiana, impersonated a figure as amusing—that of “Hezekiah Swipes,” of Vermont. He entered into his part with a zest as great as my own, and kept “a-whittlin’ and a-whittlin’ jes’ as if he was ter hum!” For myself, I enjoyed a peculiar exhilaration in the thought that, despite my amusing dress, the belles of the capital (and many were radiant beauties, too) gave way before Aunt Ruthy and her nonsense. As I observed this my zeal increased, and not even Senator Clay, who feared my gay spirits would react and cause me to become exhausted, could prevail upon me to yield a serious word or one out of my character throughout the festal night. If I paid for it, as I did, by several days’ retirement, I did not regret it, since the evening itself went off so happily.
Mrs. Gwin, as the Queen of Louis Quatorze, a regal lady, stood receiving her guests with President Buchanan beside her as Aunt Ruthy entered, knitting industriously, but stopping ever and anon to pick up a stitch which the glory of her surroundings caused her to drop. Approaching my hostess and her companion, I first made my greetings to Mrs. Gwin, with comments on her “invite,” and wondered, looking up at the windows, if she “had enough venerators to take off the execrations of that large assemblage”; but, when she presented Mrs. Partington to the President, “Lor!” exclaimed that lady, “Air you ralely ‘Old Buck’? I’ve often heern tell o’ Old Buck up in Beanville, but I don’t see no horns!”
“No, Madam,” gravely responded the President, assuming for the nonce the cynic, “I’m not a married man!”
It was at this memorable function that Lord Napier (who appeared in the character of Mr. Hammond, the first British Minister to the United States) paid his great tribute to Mrs. Pendleton. Her appearance on that occasion was lovely. She was robed in a white satin gown made dancing length, over which were rare lace flounces. A golden eagle with wings outstretched covered her corsage, and from her left shoulder floated a long tricolour sash on which, in silver letters, were the words “E Pluribus Unum.” A crown of thirteen flashing stars was set upon her well-poised head, and a more charming interpretation in dress of the national emblem could scarcely have been devised.