This is how I shall do,” said at last, and after the General and I had waited upon her small for some space; “this shall be my plan. We will have the White House for a reserve, then. The day for our cabinet folk to receive their friends will be Tuesday—the procession begins with the first Tuesday to follow New Year's Day. Our good little Secretary of State has suggested, inasmuch as I am to preside for him, that his house and mine be open only on alternate cabinet days. In short, we will receive together. On one Tuesday he will be at my house; on the next, when my house is closed, I will take stand in his drawing room and receive our guests for him. You know, too, how I am to be the head for what functions occur at the British and Russian legations and act as Lady of the for our friends, the Viscount Vaughn and Krudener. Thus I begin with a double reception in my house for the good little secretary and myself; then at Krudener's; then at the good little secretary's; and then with the English. After that, we commence again at my own home.”  
“And when do you march my White House upon this desperate field?” demanded the General, with much gaiety of . Peg's recount of how she should move her social troops delighted him no little. “In what manner will I be made of use?”
 
“Why, then,” said Peg, “after the reception at the English house if you will, you may give me a dinner, with a dance in the big East Room?” This was spoken in manner and with the lifting inflection of a request. “Also, though it be much to ask, I could wish for you to come in person to my reception. It would be a most convincing initial.”
 
“And you doubt my coming?” asked the General, beamingly.
 
“It would be most unusual for a president,” said Peg, shaking warning head. “The gossips would scarce survive the shock of it.”
 
“My life,” observed the General, in a most satisfied way, “has been made up of shocks to other folk.”
 
“But you must consider,” urged Peg, “how your appearance in any one's house would be held a letting down of your dignity. Indeed, in quarters, where the regular is as a god, it would be regarded for a no slight rent in your robes.”
 
“And yet, child, I shall come.” This the General offered in a manner indescribably good. “I have been no man of in my time; I care little for what was, but much for what is presently right. I shall come to your reception; more, I'll stay until you give me leave to go. If to be in the house of my friend, or to show him courtesy who has shown me only favor and good service—if that be to establish a rent in my , I'll even promise to have it a thing of rags and patches before ever I am done.”
 
“Then you will come!” exclaimed Peg. “Now shall we go bravely through! For, you are to know, so much of social or is born of nothing save fear of loss or hope of place, that the will collect, bowing and smiling and shining like the sun, wherever you are known to be.”
 
“These be, truly, most satisfying maps you draw,” remarked the General, quizzically, “and yet I do not see how we are to tell when victory is ours. Now, in war the enemy surrenders or runs away.”
 
“In the salons,” said Peg, laughing at the General's twists, “triumph turns to the question of numbers added to quality. It is a matter of 'Who?' and 'How many?—a count of carriages to your gate. But the of quality is uppermost. Now, your presence at my house will the world, should it be so foolish as to gather itself together against us in the camps of the .”
 
“Then you are indeed very safe,” said the General, “since I shall be with you as I've said. Also, you are to have your dinner and that East Room ball to follow, on what day you lay the finger of your pretty preference. Even though I lacked the reason of my affection, I still could do no less for so beautiful an enemy of Calhoun. But you of Van Buren. How did our round little friend go about his proposals of those receptions? I have a curiosity as to that argument which should lead him to this wisdom; for, let me remind you, it is a of a Caesar, and one, besides, to smell most humanly of what is honest and staunch, this phrasing of a situation where your ill-wishers must become his ill-wishers and his friends take on terms of friendship for you. How did Van Buren go upon that proposition, child?”
 
“In the oddest way, then,” smiled Peg. “He said that because we were both of origin, with sires to keep houses of call, and since there might come proud folk to frown upon us for that, it were a wisest thing, and one to make for the ease of them and us, to hold ever our receptions in common. Folk then might come, or stay away, and all with a saving of effort, whether of compliment or insult, to every one concerned. But, of course,” said Peg, at the close, her eye a bit wet, “it was only his goodness to do this.”
 
“Now, I believe nothing of that sort,” declared the General, . “Child, I do not know by what paths you to this modest of yourself, but it in nowise shakes the fact that, with the last of it, you grace and and honor the best room you enter or the best arm to lean on in the land.”
 
Thus spoke the General from his heart; and to me it was like milk and honey to only hear him. In the finish he turned his eyes my way.
 
“And where be your words in this council?” demanded the General. “Have you lost the will to speak?”
 
Now, I had kept myself quiet since Peg was come back to her throne. For one thing, the simple sight of her, and she friendly, was enough to my cup of happiness; moreover, I owned to some fear of Peg, and imagined how I had but to open my mouth to set her anger again on edge. At any rate, no stone could have said less than did I while Peg and the General held this long of the drawing rooms. When now, however, the General aimed at me direct, I was bound to make return.
 
“Have you no advice for us, then?” repeated the General. “It is not usual for you to so neglect my welfare. Here you permit me to talk ten minutes without once telling me and wholly just what I should do.” All this in tones of jesting: “Now you would seem willing that I, and our little girl, too, should go unguided to destruction rather than unstrap your wisdom in our cause. Sir, do you call that the truth of a friend?”
 
“Perhaps I have no good eyes for these trails,” said I. “Your reception and how to foil them are things I have not studied. I would but lose you your course were I to lead you.”
 
“Mighty diffident,” quoth the General, “and most suddenly ! And no good eyes, say you? Why, then, you could see a church by daylight, I take it! At the least, you might cheer folk on who propose such deeds of carpet daring as do our little Peg and I.”
 
With what further raillery the General might have entertained himself I came not to know, for word was brought to him, at this nick, of ones who awaited his coming in the cabinet room. As he went away he called back to Peg, where she still in her leathern chair:
 
“Then it is settled and made. I shall be at your reception, to the grinding shock of gossips and the of my presidential robes; also, you are to dine and dance in the White House whenever you sweetly will.”
 
“Where should have more kindness for me than I now find here?” cried Peg, when the General was quite gone of the room. Then raising her warm eyes to mine where I sat wondering, now cold, now hot, would she go, or would she stay to talk with me, she gazed upon me with a steady, friendly look, which, for all it lacked of distance or any spirit of , yet bred within me a feeling of confusion. I knew not how to meet it, and I could find no word to say. “And now,” said Peg, after a pause, but very kindly, “let us have a fair moment of friendship. No,” she went on, stopping me with her hand as I was beginning to stumble forward upon an apology for my ill words against Eaton, “no; let me talk. You have no genius of explanation; you would speak only to worsen things. Besides, you dwell in the same darkness now you ever did.”
 
“And it was to say that,” I interjected, for I was bound to some remark, “I started to speak. It was to tell you how I had no close knowledge of your husband and owned no right of information to him.”
 
“Watch-dog!” cried Peg, motioning with little hands for silence, “watch-dog, will you have done?”
 
There was something of pain and reproach in this to stop me as though I had been planet-struck. Nor could I determine Peg's feeling, nor catch the color of it in a least of shade. For the most, I felt , and was set back by the plain of her, an agitation greater than was to have been looked for in one who came to pardon me those against good decent taste.
 
Peg called herself together with a shake of the head that had for one effect the whipping of her shock of curls about her face, and leaving them a to fall forward on her shoulders.
 
“Hear me,” went on Peg, brightening, and peering out on me in an arch way through her curls; “you are guilty of no wrong save the wrong of incredible dullness. Therefore you are to offer no defence. Even your dullness should have been a in my eyes, since it spoke only of your honor, and told of the lofty place I hold in your regard.” Now I could see how Peg was at least accepting all I had said, and not one part only, and would give me credit for a compliment to herself, while she refused my strictures upon Eaton. “Observe, then; I have resolved we two shall be good friends. Better friends than before, because better to understand one another. And our trouble was my fault, too, not yours. Nor had I one right foot to go upon.”
 
“Now, that is the maddest charity of error!” cried I.
 
“It is not, I say,” returned Peg, her eyes beginning to shine with the first flavor of my . “I say it is not. You had done nothing, said nothing; while I—why, then I hated you for having eyes of lead. But we will that.” Here Peg turned pleasantly brisk. “We have been too much abroad with mistakes. We have made you too old and me too young in our dealings. There shall be a change, and you and I hereafter are to consider ourselves as folk of even years, each with the other. It is but right, watchdog, for though you have no learning on that point, it is none the less true that a woman of twenty-two is very old and very wise, while a man of forty-four is for his youth and guilelessness, or I should have said dullness, a creature insupportable. Yes, watch-dog, for your ignorance you are insupportable; but I forgive you, since it is your only defect.” And here Peg recovered her old gay smile, and with that my heart came home again to peace.
 
“Well,” I said, when Peg would let me be heard, “I make no secret that I am over happy with this new of your friendship. It was night while I thought you would not forgive me my offence.”
 
“Say no more of it,” cried Peg, sharply, putting her fingers in her ears. At the same time I caught the shine of her teeth. “Say no more, or I shall go back to my anger as a refuge. Speak of something else! Why did you turn my chair out of door?—my poor chair that had done no harm!” Peg the arms of it with her palms as though it were alive and could know and feel her petting. “You did it because you hated me.”
 
“No, forsooth!” I protested. “Now if I had only hated you it might have stayed till the fall of . But I could not bear the leering, mocking look of it, and me ; it would seem ever to for me a cup of loneliness. And so for that I thrust it from the room.”
 
“Why, then! and that was it!” cried Peg. “There you see, now, I can be a fool as well as you.”
 
“But why did you avoid me?” I asked, in my turn. “Surely, even for my dull clumsiness, there was need of no such hard . Come, now, why did you stay away? And why did you run from me when I went across to the square that day to beg a word from you?”
 
“Because I hated you,” returned Peg, with a self-satisfied air. “I hate you now, watchdog, when I pause and think. You had made me suffer, and I thought to see you suffer in return. And really, watch-dog, you did suffer; and it pleased me much.”
 
“I had not thought you were made with such a palate for revenge,” said I, a bit stricken with these words of cruelty. “And yet, if it so pleasure you to give me pain, why then, go on.”
 
“Don't, watch-dog, don't,” returned Peg, in a voice whimsically between crying and laughing. “Only a little more of that and you shall have my tears. But can't you see how your suffering was a most tender compliment? I declare to you that when I would go by your door, the look of grief to weigh upon your brow was better to me than a smile. The mere memory of it would keep my heart warm throughout a winter's day.”
 
“It must indeed be a topsy-turvy nature,” said I, “that finds its pleasure in the of friends.”
 
“No recriminations, watch-dog,” retorted Petif, in a high . “If your dullness have no limits, at the least my patience has. Now where did you go when I avoided you in the square, and you were too much the coward to lift the knocker of my door? Fie! such another fawn-heart does not roam existence! Where did you go, I say?”
 
“Well, I would give that vine of yours a tree to clamber on and lift it off the ground.”
 
“And did you,” demanded Peg, eagerly. “The gods ruled otherwise,” I returned. “There was no tree to be near or possible for your vine; it must live and die on the ground.” Peg sat quite still and never a response. As I looked on her, somewhat with wonder, I concede, two great drops welled from her eyes and fell down upon her hands.
 
“Now I would like to hear,” said Peg at last, her voice in a twitter of pain, “does ever one get what one prays for in this world of ours? Would there be such a word as contentment, now? However, I am glad, watchdog, your good heart took you to my vine. But let it go; let it all go! Let us be friends; and if the day can't be for us all sunshine, let us own as few clouds as we may. Now, we will forget the past, and start our friendship out anew. We will bring nothing to remind us of days when I was young and cunning and you were old and dull.”
 
At this, I involuntarily looked for the mark of Peg's leopard tooth, where, round and white, it stared up at me from my hand.
 
“Ah, yes!” said Peg, softly, “I had forgotten. There is that sign between us that shall last through time. No, we can never forget.” Then, after a moment: “But we may change the subject and say the worst of it. You heard me lay out my reception purposes. What do you think of my plans?”
 
“Tell me first one thing,” said I. “When it was so much pleasure to me in grief for your absence, why, then, did you come back?” That speech of Peg's was like a in my heart, and I would have her draw it out with some kindness of explanation. “Why did you come back, then?”
 
“The mere sorrow of it brought me back, watch-dog,” said Peg, and her words were music in my ear. “It came finally to where I would sooner suffer than have you suffer. That is the woman nature of me. The sheer truth is, I've been on my way back to you for days. When I followed you in the square, it was with a full purpose of taking your arm and walking with you as in the old time.”
 
“And why didn't you?”
 
“Just as I would have done so, I was caught up in a little of which carried me away from your side. It didn't last the moment, but by the time it was gone the chance had taken flight. There is one thing I should tell you, however; at such a time you must not palter with a woman.” Peg's tones were uplifted to the pitch severe. “Do you know what you should have done that day? You should have seized me by the shoulder as you did that spy who dogged us; you should have stopped me flush and full. Without excuse or explanation or of for what had been, you should have made me take your arm. You might have found, had you so willed it, that for all my high head I would follow you like a dog.”
 
“Take you by the shoulder!” cried I, somewhat aroused to a spirit of terror. “And that would have been polite, indeed, and the act of a true gentleman! I can see myself seizing you by the shoulder!”
 
“For all that,” contended Peg, with much , “that is what you should have done. Remember: in treating with a woman, while one should be a gentleman—your word—one must be a man. There is this, too, about a woman with the man she would love. She likes but she does not want to win; victory would only embarass your woman. Her instinct is rather for protection than to protect, and to find him on whom she leans weaker than herself might alarm her love into flight. And as for that politeness you tell of, it is an , like a dress or a house, and good only within a limit. There be occasions when politeness to a man is a fair thing thrown away; also, there be occasions when politeness to a woman is nothing better than a waste of justice. Watch-dog, you should have pocketed the 'gentleman' for use on a languid day; you should have been all 'man.' You should have seized me by the shoulder; you should have made me go or stay, or talk or stand mute, as you willed. It was for that”—and Peg gave me this gravely, like some confidant Pythoness sure of her Apollo-inspired word—“it was for that, watch-dog, you were made the stronger of us two.”
 
Now here was a pretty word of caution! It was as the General once said: one had only to listen, and lo! one would hear ever the stirring about in Peg.
 
“There is one thing whereof I was cheated,” said I, after a brief silence, and seeking to give our talk a slighter, if not a direction of more reason. “You were to give me lessons in yourself. I looked forward to no little improvement from such good teaching, and when I was made to go missing it I could feel a plain loss to myself.”
 
“And perhaps now,” observed Peg, with her half-merry glance, “I was giving you a lesson in Peg for every moment of that frowning time.” Then, as if in reply to my look of bewilderment: “No, watch-dog I went too fast in those threats to myself. You are in no sort prepared for so tremendous a course of study.”
 
“Wherein do I lack now?”
 
“Why, you flounder in abyssmal ignorance of yourself. To study another with a hope of light, one should first own some liberal knowledge of one's self. To have gone about to teach you that difficult lesson of Peg, you, who are as of yourself as any bush or tree or tuft of grass, would have been as truly wise, and a task well worth one's while, as would be a discussion of Moore with that savage of the woods who has yet to hear of the alphabet. However, we will rest content with you as you are, oh, watch-dog! oh, slave of Peg, wearing her mark! The more, for that your splendid ignorance of both yourself and me has to be its characteristic, a white, high beauty like unto some snow-capped peak—safe, too, since . And now, because I have stayed long; and because we are good friends again; and because we will infallibly quarrel should I remain, I think, watch-dog, I shall go home.”
 
And so Peg went away, singing a little song which was no song but like the whistle of some thrush, leaving me in a calm of peace; nor did I fail to remember how Peg's , when she departed, was the earliest music upon her lips since ever she would be in anger with me for those ill opinions against Eaton.
 
There was no long time given me to think on Peg and her of temper, black and white, for Noah was with me briskly on the tail of her going away. Noah brought with him that Blair who had come in to my note, to be the rival of Duff Green and organize the Globe as a death-stab to Duff's Telegraph. I had met Blair before, and liked him; most of all was he a favorite of the General, for his pen was fed of fire and the heart of his friendship was like the loyal heart of a dog. In person, Blair was a slender, sickly man, but with a great head on his shoulders, and strange eyes that shone like jewels. He was not unlike the General; only the latter stood vastly taller, and, while Blair was as some fire to blaze and sparkle and burn, the General would be more that hurricane of wind, of no man, flat as a field of everything to stand in the way.
 
“Here is a delicate question,” said Noah, with his grin of the cynic. “The department folk will give our friend, Blair, no public printing; it goes all to Duff. That should be stopped, since your public advertising—I speak from my place as an editor—is for your newspaper as the breath in its body.”
 
“And what would you propose by way of cure for that of our folk of the departments who will still send printing to the Duf............