"Not yet," said Mont, "but it'll come." "And they will go."

"No, really, Sir. I'm making any number of observations, and they all confirm my theory. Human nature is consistently underrated in business, people do themselves out of an awful lot of pleasure and profit by that. Of course, you must be perfectly genuine and open, but that's easy if you feel it. The more human and generous you are the better chance you've got in business." Soames rose.

"Are you a partner?"

"Not for six months, yet."

"Oh!"

In her startled, frowning face, he saw the instant struggle to apprehend what this would mean.

"Poor Jon! Why didn't you tell me, Father?"

"I never know!" said Soames slowly; "you don't confide in me."

"I would, if you'd help me, dear."
"Perhaps I shall."

Fleur clasped her hands. "Oh! darling -when one wants a thing fearfully, one doesn't think of other people. Don't be angry with me."

Soames put out his hand, as if pushing

Mont laughed.

"You'll see," he said. "There's going to be a big change. The possessive principle has got its shutters up."

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"What?" said Soames.

"The house is to let! Good-bye, Sir; I'm off now."

Soames watched his daughter give her hand, saw her wince at the squeeze it received, and distinctly heard the young man's sigh as he passed out. Then she came from the window, trailing her finger along the mahogany edge of the billiardtable. Watching her, Soames knew that she was going to ask him something. Her finger felt round the last pocket, and she looked up.

"Have you done anything to stop Jon writing to me, Father?"

Soames shook his head.

"I'm cogitating," he said. What on earth had made him use a word like that! "Has young Mont been bothering you again?"

Fleur smiled. "Oh! Michael! He's always bothering; but he's an awfully good sort-I don't mind him."

"Well," said Soames, "I'm tired; I shall go and have a nap before dinner."

He went up to his picture-gallery, lay down on the couch there, and closed his eyes. A terrible responsibility this girl of his-whose mother was-ah! what was she? A terrible responsibility! Help her-how could he help her? He could not alter the fact that he was her father. Or that Irene-! What was it young Mont had said-some nonsense about the possessive instinct-shutters up- To let? Silly!

N writing of my brother in the White House various scenes stand out with special clearness. The first night he spent there comes back with a tender aroma of his love for his sisters and his loyal memory of his father.

The deed of the cowardly assassin had done its work; William McKinley was dead. The young Vice-President had made the hazardous flying trip from the heart of the Adirondack Mountains, had taken the solemn oath in Buffalo, had followed the body of his late chief to its final resting-place, and had returned to Washington. From Washington he telegraphed to my husband and myself-with the love and thought which he always showed-and told us that as Mrs. Roosevelt was attending to last important matters at Sagamore Hill she could not be with him the day he was to move into the White House, and that he was very anxious that not only my sister Mrs. Cowles and her husband but that we also should dine with him the first night that he slept in the old mansion. So we went on to Washington and shared with him that first meal in the house for which he had such romantic attachment because it had sheltered the hero of his boyhood and his manhood, Abraham Lincoln. As we sat around the table he turned and said: "Do you realize this is the birthday of our father, September 22? I have realized it, as I signed various papers all day long, and I feel that it is a very good omen that I should begin my duties in this house on this day. I feel as if my father's hand

VOL. LXX.-6

were on my shoulder, and as if there were a special blessing over the life I am to lead here."

Almost as he finished this sentence the coffee was passed to us, and at that time it was the habit at the White House to pass, with the coffee, a little boutonnière to each gentleman. As the flowers were passed to the President, the one given to him was a yellow saffronia rose for his buttonhole. His face flushed, and he turned again and said: "Is it not strange! This is the rose we all connect with my father." And my sister and I responded eagerly that over and over again in the past we had seen our father pruning the rose-bush of saffronia roses with special care. He always picked one for his buttonhole from that bush; and whenever we gave him a rose we gave him one of that kind. Again my brother said with a very serious look on his face: "I think there is a blessing connected with this." And surely it did seem as if there were a blessing connected with those years of Theodore Roosevelt in the White House, those merry, happy years of family life, those ardent, loving years of public service, those splendid peaceful years of international amity. A blessing there surely was over that house.

Nothing could have been harder to the temperament of Theodore Roosevelt than to have come "through the cemetery," as Peter Dunne said in his prophetic article, a few months before, to the high position of President of the United States. What he had achieved in the past had been absolutely through his own merits; what he would have wished to achieve in the fu

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ture would not, with his will, have come to him "through dead men's shoes." During the early years of his occupancy of the White House he strove in every possible way to fulfil the policies of his predecessor, retaining the former's appointees, and working with conscientious loyalty as much as possible along the lines followed by the martyred President. In April, 1903, however, he started upon a great trip, and at that time felt that as the years of his inherited incumbency were drawing to a close he could preach his own gospel.

After that exhausting trip, replete with many thrilling experiences, he returns to Oyster Bay for a little rest, and writes spontaneously in September of the beautiful family life which was always led there. My boy Stewart was with him at the time, and he speaks of him affectionately in connection with his own "Ted," who was Stewart's intimate friend.

"Stewart, Ted, and I took an hour and a half bareback ride all together this morning. Ted is always longing that Stewart should go off on a hunting trip with him. I should be delighted to have them go now. Although I have no doubt they would get into scrapes, I have also no doubt that they would get out of them. We have had a lovely summer, as lovely a summer as we have ever passed. . . . All the children have enjoyed their various activities, and we have been a great deal with the children, and in addition to that, Edith and I have ridden on horseback much together, and have frequently gone off for a day at a time in our little rowboat, not to speak of the picnics to which everybody went.

"In the intervals I have chopped industriously. I have seen a great many people who came to call upon me on political business. I have had to handle my correspondence of course, and I have had not a few wearing matters of national policy, ranging from the difficulties in Turkey to the scandals in the Post Office. But I have had three months of rest, of holiday, by comparison with what has gone before. Next Monday I go back to Washington, and for the thirteen months following, there will be mighty little letup to the strain. But I enjoy it to the full.

"What the outcome will be as far as I am personally concerned, I do not know. It looks as if I would be renominated; whether I shall be re-elected I haven't the slightest idea. I know there is bitter opposition to me from many sources. Whether I shall have enough support to overcome this opposition, I cannot tell. I suppose few Presidents can form the slightest idea whether their policies have met with approval or not. Certainly I cannot. But as far as I can see, these policies have been right, and I hope that time will justify them. If it doesn't, why I must abide the fall of the dice, and that is all there is to it. Ever yours, T. R."

That letter is very characteristic of his attitude. Strain-yes; hard work-yes; but equally "I enjoy it to the full!" Equally also is he willing to abide by the "fall of the dice," having done what he fully believed to have been the right thing for the country.

That December, the day after Christmas, he writes again:

"Darling Sister: I so enjoyed seeing you here, but I have been so worried about you. I am now looking forward to Stewart's coming, and to seeing Helen and Ted. But I do wish you would take a rest.

"We had a delightful Christmas yesterday, just such a Christmas as thirty or forty years ago we used to have under Father's and Mother's supervision in 20th St. and then 57th Street. At seven all the children came in to open the big, bulging stockings in our bed; Kermit's terrier, Allan, a most friendly little dog, adding to the children's delight by occupying the middle of the bed. From Alice to Quentin, each child was absorbed in his or her stocking, and Edith certainly managed to get the most wonderul stocking toys. . . . Then after breakfast we all went into the library, where the bigger toys were on separate tables for the children. I wonder whether there ever can come in life a thrill of greater exaltation and rapture than that which comes to us, say between the ages of six and fourteen, when the library doors are thrown open and one walks in to see all the gifts, like

a materialized fairyland arrayed on one's own special table.

"We had a most pleasant lunch at Bamie's [our sister Mrs. Cowles]. She had given a delightful Christmas tree to the children the afternoon before; and then I stopped in to see Cabot and Nannie [Senator and Mrs. Lodge]. It was raining so hard that we could not walk or ride with any comfort, so later Roly Fortescue, Ted and I played 'single stick' in the study. All of our connections and all of the Lodge connections were at dinner with us, twenty-two in all. After the dinner we danced in the East Room, closing with the Virginia Reel,Edith looking as young and as pretty, and dancing as well as ever.

"It is a clear, cold morning, and Edith and I and all the children (save Quentin) and also Bob Ferguson and Cabot are about to start for a ride.

Your loving brother."

Such were all Christmases at the White House; such was the spirit of the White House in those days. During the early years of my brother's presidency, before he and Mrs. Roosevelt bought a small place in Virginia where they then went for Thanksgiving, my husband and I always spent Thanksgiving at the White House, and joined in festivities very much like the Christmas ones, including the gay Virginia reel, which was also always part of the Thanksgiving ceremony.

On October 18 again my brother writes: "Of course I am excited about the election, but there really isn't much I can do about it, and I confine myself chiefly to the regular presidential work. Nobody can tell anything about the outcome. At the present time it looks rather favorable to me.' And again to my husband on October 25: "As for the result, the Lord only knows what it will be. Appearances look favorable, but I have a mind steeled for any outcome!"

In spite of his mind steeled against any outcome, the great ambition of Theodore Roosevelt's life was to be at that time on his own merits the choice of the people of the United States for President. He longed for the seal of approval on the devoted service which he had rendered to his country, and one of my clearest

memories is my conversation with him on Election Day, 1904, when I met him at Newark, New Jersey, on his way back from voting at Oyster Bay, and went with him as far as Philadelphia. In his drawing-room on the train he opened his heart to me and told me that he had never wanted anything in his life quite as much as the outward and visible sign of his countrymen's approval of what he had done during the last three and a half years. I honestly do not, in any way, feel that this great desire was because of any overweening ambition, but to the nature of Theodore Roosevelt it had always been especially difficult to have come into the high position which he held through the calamity to another rather than through his own popularity with the people of the United States. His temperament was such that he wished no favor which he had not himself won. Therefore it seemed to him a crucial moment in his life when, on his own merit, he was about to be judged as fit or unfit to be his own successor. Not only for those reasons did he wish to be elected, but for the same reasons as caused his desire to serve a second term as Governor of New York State. He had initiated many reforms, made many appointments, and he wished to carry those reforms through, and to back up those appointments with his own helpfulness and prestige. When we parted in Philadelphia, I to return to my country home in Orange, and he to go on to meet the crucial moment of his career, I remember feeling a poignant anxiety for the result of the election; and it is easy to understand the joy with which, that evening, when the news was overwhelmingly in favor of his re-election, we received a telegram from the White House in answer to our telegram sent earlier in the evening, saying: "Was glad to hear from you. Only wish you were both with us this evening."

The next morning I received a letter, only a few lines but infinitely characteristic, penned by my brother almost immediately after his arrival at the White House, after parting with me at Philadelphia. In this letter, written before any returns of the election had been sent to him, he describes his sudden reaction from the condition of nervous excite