RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
various departments. Then there were the wives of the members of the Supreme Court, women whose husbands were connected with the many different bureaus and a large and most attractive civilian society which contributes so much to the gaiety of the city. And besides all these there were the Army women, any number of them.
Every afternoon throughout the winter when I was not "at home" myself I started out on certain rounds of calls, and I think I made as many calls as any one I knew. Irksome to me as this duty sometimes was, in the formal discharge of it I made some of the pleasantest friends I ever had. I have always found Army women particularly delightful, and it is easy to understand why they are so. In the course of their wanderings and their many changes of habitation, and in consequence of the happy-go-lucky attitude toward life that they are bound to assume, they acquire a cordiality of manner and an all-round generous tone which make them very attractive.
One morning each week Mrs. Roosevelt held a meeting of the Cabinet ladies at the White House, but this was not a social affair. We met to discuss various matters supposed to be of interest to us all, and would gather in the library from eleven to twelve for this purpose.
After calling, the most important social duty devolving upon a Cabinet officer's wife is dining out. We always dined out when we were not giving a dinner party at our own house, so that from the time Mr. Taft became Secretary of War we almost ceased to know what it was to have "a quiet evening at home." Of course such a life gave us an opportunity for meeting many interesting men and women who contributed much to the sum total of what the world seemed to have in store for us.
It has been the custom through a good many administrations for the President, sometime during the season between December first and Lent, to dine with each member of the
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