Occasionally, though not often, Mr. Ratcliffe came at other
times, as when he persuaded Mrs. Lee to be present at the
Inauguration, and to call on the President's wife. Madeleine and
Sybil went to the Capitol and had the best places to see and hear
the Inauguration, as well as a cold March wind would allow. Mrs.
Lee found fault with the ceremony; it was of the earth, earthy, she
said. An elderly western farmer, with silver spectacles, new and
glossy evening clothes, bony features, and stiff; thin, gray hair,
trying to address a large crowd of people, under the drawbacks of a
piercing wind and a cold in his head, was not a hero. Sybil's mind
was lost in wondering whether the President would not soon die of
pneumonia. Even this experience, however, was happy when
compared with that of the call upon the President's wife, after
which Madeleine decided to leave the new dynasty alone in future.
The lady, who was somewhat stout and coarse-featured, and whom
Mrs. Lee declared she wouldn't engage as a cook, showed qualities
which, seen under that fierce light which beats upon a throne,
seemed ungracious. Her antipathy to Ratcliffe was more violent
than her husband's, and was even more openly expressed, until the
President was quite put out of countenance by it. She extended her
hostility to every one who could be supposed to be Ratcliffe's
friend, and the newspapers, as well as private gossip, had marked
out Mrs. Lee as one who, by an alliance with Ratcliffe, was aiming
at supplanting her own rule over the White House.
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