“Will you permit me to congratulate Congressman Lyons on his good fortune in the affairs of the heart as well as in politics?”

“If you say things like that, Mr. President,” interjected Lyons, “you will turn her head; she will become a Republican, and then where should I be?”

While she perceived that the President was still inclined to levity, the compliment pleased Selma.  Yet, though she appreciated that her husband was merely humoring him by his reply, she did not like the suggestion that any flattery could affect her principles.  She shook her head coquettishly and said: 

“James, I’m sure the President thinks too well of American women to believe that any admiration, however gratifying, would make me lukewarm in devotion to my party.”

This speech appeared to her apposite and called for, and she departed in high spirits, which were illuminated by the thought that the administration was not wholly to be trusted.

On the following evening Selma went to the reception at the White House.  The process of arrival was trying to her patience, for they were obliged to await their turn in the long file of carriages.  She could not but approve of the democratic character of the entertainment, which anyone who desired to behold and shake hands with the Chief Magistrate was free to attend.  Still, it again crossed her mind that, as an official’s wife, she ought to have been given precedence.  Their turn to alight came at last, and they took their places in the procession of visitors on its way through the East room to the spot where the President and his wife, assisted by some of the ladies of the Cabinet, were submitting to the ordeal of receiving the nation.  There was a veritable crush, in which there was every variety of evening toilette, a display essentially in keeping with the doctrines which Selma felt that she stood for.  She took occasion to rejoice in Lyons’s ear at the realization of her anticipations in this respect.  At the same time she was agreeably stimulated by the belief that her wedding dress was sumptuous and stylish, and her appearance striking.  Her hair had been dressed as elaborately as possible; she wore all her jewelry; and she carried a bouquet of costly roses.  Her wish was to regard the function as the height of social demonstration, and she had spared no pains to make herself effective.  She had esteemed it her duty to do so both as a Congressman’s wife and as a champion of moral and democratic ideas.

The crowd was oppressive, and three times the train of her dress was stepped on to her discomfiture.  Amid the sea of faces she recognized a few of the people she had seen at the hotel.  It struck her that no one of the women was dressed so elegantly as herself, an observation which cheered her and yet was not without its thorn.  But the music, the lights, and the variegated movement of the scene kept her senses absorbed and interfered with introspection, until at last they were close to the receiving party.