Shortly after my husband's election, having spent a couple of restful weeks at Hot Springs, Virginia, we went to Augusta, Georgia, and took the old house known as the Terrett Cottage, near the Bon Air Hotel. To me the weeks we spent there were exceptionally happy ones and I should like to mention each friend—friends then and friends still—who contributed to our constant enjoyment, but there were too many of them and their kindnesses too numerous.
Mr. Taft, of course, immediately became engrossed in the difficulties of securing a Cabinet which would satisfy everybody and disappoint none,—an impossibility,—as well as a thousand and one other matters not connected in any way with the daily games of golf on Augusta's sandy links which attracted such wide attention. But even then my own problems became to me paramount and I began to give them my almost undivided attention and to neglect the political affairs which had for many years interested me so intensely. Perhaps with my husband safely elected I considered all important affairs satisfactorily settled. At any rate I found little time or inclination at the moment to worry about who should have the high offices in the new President's gift, or what policies should be pursued during his administration.
At my request Captain Archibald Butt came down to Augusta to consult with me as to changes I wished to make in the White House service, and together we went over the whole situation. As President Roosevelt's aide he knew the whole lexicon of customary White House social formalities.
I had been a member of Washington's official family for five years and knew as well as need be the various phases of the position I was about to assume, so my plans were
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