RECOLLECTIONS OF FULL YEARS
help but feel something as Cinderella must have felt when her mice footmen bowed her into her coach and four and behaved just as if they had conducted her to a Court Ball every night of her life. I stood for a moment over the great brass seal, bearing the national coat-of-arms, which is sunk in the floor in the middle of the entrance hall. "The Seal of the President of the United States," I read around the border, and now — that meant my husband!
But I could not linger long because my duties as a hostess began at once. I was not unused to the accepted regulations of official life, so, in spite of a slight feeling that the whole thing was unreal, I was not embarrassed as I walked into the great dining-room and took my place by the door to receive guests for the first time as mistress of the White House.
I had left to the efficient management of Captain Archibald Butt as many of the details of the day's programme as was possible. Some time before I had carefully gone over the plans with him, we had provided for any reasonable emergency, and I knew my instructions would be carried out. Captain Butt—later Major Butt—had been military aide to President Roosevelt; we had known him well, both in the Philippines and in Washington, and we were glad to have the opportunity of continuing him in that capacity. Whatever Major Butt did was done faultlessly-always. During the three years he was with us—day in and day out, upon every possible occasion, in the closest intimacy—I never ceased to wonder at his genius for work, his comprehensive grasp of important matters and of small details, his extraordinary accuracy. His very presence inspired the utmost confidence. Archie Butt, as everybody called him, became our close and dearly loved friend. Indeed, we felt that he belonged to us, and nothing in all our experience ever touched us as deeply as the tragedy of his death. Returning from a short vacation abroad, he went down on the
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