I knew that Mrs. Lincoln’s income was small, and also knew that she had many valuable dresses, which could be of no value to her, packed away in boxes and trunks. I was confident that she would never wear the dresses again, and thought that, since her need was urgent, it would be well enough to dispose of them quietly, and believed that New York was the best place to transact a delicate business of the kind. She was the wife of Abraham Lincoln, the man who had done so much for my race, and I could refuse to do nothing for her, calculated to advance her interests. I consented to render Mrs. Lincoln all the assistance in my power, and many letters passed between us in regard to the best way to proceed. It was finally arranged that I should meet her in New York about the middle of September. While thinking over this question, I remembered an incident of the White House. When we were packing up to leave Washington for Chicago, she said to me, one morning:

“Lizzie, I may see the day when I shall be obliged to sell a portion of my wardrobe. If Congress does not do something for me, then my dresses some day may have to go to bring food into my mouth, and the mouths of my children.”

I also remembered of Mrs. L. having said to me at different times, in the years of 1863 and ’4, that her expensive dresses might prove of great assistance to her some day.

“In what way, Mrs. Lincoln? I do not understand,” I ejaculated, the first time she made the remark to me.

“Very simple to understand. Mr. Lincoln is so generous that he will not save anything from his salary, and I expect that we will leave the White House poorer than when we came into it; and should such be the case, I will no further need for an expensive wardrobe, and it will be policy to sell it off.”

I thought at the time that Mrs. Lincoln was borrowing trouble from the future, and little dreamed that the event which she so dimly foreshadowed would ever come to pass.

I closed my business about the 10th of September, and made every arrangement to leave Washington on the mission proposed. On the 15th of September I received a letter from Mrs. Lincoln, post-marked Chicago, saying that she should leave the city so as to reach New York on the night of the 17th, and directing me to precede her to the metropolis, and secure rooms for her at the St. Denis Hotel in the name of Mrs. Clarke, as her visit was to be incog. The contents of the letter were startling to me. I had never heard of the St. Denis, and therefore presumed that it could not be a first-class house. And I could not understand why Mrs. Lincoln should travel, without protection, under an assumed name. I knew that it would be impossible for me to engage rooms at a strange hotel for a person whom the proprietors knew nothing about. I could not write to Mrs. Lincoln, since she would be on the road to New York before a letter could possibly reach Chicago. I could not telegraph her, for the business was of too delicate a character to be trusted to the wires that would whisper the secret to every curious operator along the line. In my embarrassment, I caught at a slender thread of hope, and tried to derive consolation from it. I knew Mrs. Lincoln to be indecisive about some things, and I hoped that she might change her mind in regard to the strange programme proposed, and at the last moment despatch me to this effect. The 16th, and then the 17th of September passed, and no despatch reached me, so on the 18th I made all haste to take the train for New York. After an anxious ride, I reached the city in the evening, and when I stood alone in the streets of the great metropolis, my heart sank within me. I was in an embarrassing situation, and scarcely knew how to act. I did not know where the St. Denis Hotel was, and was not certain that I should find Mrs. Lincoln there after I should go to it. I walked up to Broadway, and got into a stage going up town, with the intention of keeping a close look-out for the hotel in question. A kind-looking gentleman occupied the seat next to me, and I ventured to inquire of him:

“If you please, sir, can you tell me where the St. Denis Hotel is?”

“Yes; we ride past it in the stage. I will point it out to you when we come to it.”

“Thank you, sir.”

The stage rattled up the street, and after a while the gentleman looked out of the window and said:

“This is the St. Denis. Do you wish to get out here?”

“Thank you. Yes, sir.”

He pulled the strap, and the next minute I was standing on the pavement. I pulled a bell at the ladies’ entrance to the hotel, and a boy coming to the door, I asked:

“Is a lady by the name of Mrs. Clarke stopping here? She came last night, I believe.”

“I do not know. I will ask at the office”; and I was left alone.

The boy came back and said:

“Yes, Mrs. Clarke is here. Do you want to see her?”

“Yes.”

“Well, just walk round there. She is down here now.”

I did not know where “round there” exactly was, but I concluded to go forward.

I stopped, however, thinking that the lady might be in the parlor with company; and pulling out a card, asked the boy to take it to her. She heard me talking, and came into the hall to see herself.

“My dear Lizzie, I am so glad to see you,” she exclaimed, coming forward and giving me her hand. “I have just received your note”—I had written her that I should join her on the 18th—“and have been trying to get a room for you. Your note has been here all day, but it was never delivered until to-night. Come in here, until I find out about your room”; and she led me into the office.

The clerk, like all modern hotel clerks, was exquisitely arrayed, highly perfumed, and too self-important to be obliging, or even courteous.

“This is the woman I told you about. I want a good room for her,” Mrs. Lincoln said to the clerk.

“We have no room for her, madam,” was the pointed rejoinder.

“But she must have a room. She is a friend of mine, and I want a room for her adjoining mine.”

“We have no room for her on your floor.”

“That is strange, sir. I tell you that she is a friend of mine, and I am sure you could not give a room to a more worthy person.”

“Friend of your, or not, I tell you we have no room for her on your floor. I can find a place for her on the fifth floor.”

“That, sir, I presume, will be a vast improvement on my room. Well, if she goes to the fifth floor, I shall go too, sir. What is good enough for her is good enough for me.”

“Very well, madam. Shall I give you adjoining rooms, and send your baggage up?”

“Yes, and have it done in a hurry. Let the boy show us up. Come, Elizabeth,” and Mrs. L. turned from the clerk with a haughty glance, and we commenced climbing the stairs. I thought we should never reach the top; and when we did reach the fifth story, what accommodations! Little three-cornered rooms, scantily furnished. I never expected to see the widow of President Lincoln in such dingy, humble quarters.

“How provoking!” Mrs. Lincoln exclaimed, sitting down on a chair when we had reached the top, and panting from the effects of the climbing. “I declare, I never saw such unaccommodating people. Just to think of them sticking us away up here in the attic. I will give them a regular going over in the morning.”

“But you forget. They do not know you. Mrs. Lincoln would be treated differently from Mrs. Clarke.”

“True, I do forget. Well, I suppose I shall have to put up with the annoyances. Why did you not come to me yesterday, Lizzie? I was almost crazy when I reached here last night, and found you had not arrived. I sat down and wrote you a note—I felt so badly—imploring you to come to me immediately.”

This note was afterwards sent to me from Washington. It reads as follows:

“MY DEAR LIZZIE:—I arrived here last evening in utter despair at not finding you. I am frightened to death, being here alone. Come, I pray you, by next train. Inquire for

“House so crowded could not get another spot. I wrote you especially to meet me here last evening; it makes me wild to think of being here alone. Come by next train, without fail.

“I am booked Mrs. Clarke; inquire for no other person. Come, come, come. I will pay your expenses when you arrive here. I shall not leave here or change my room until you come.

“Do not leave this house without seeing me.

I transcribe the letter literally.

In reply to Mrs.Lincoln’s last question, I explained what has already been explained to the reader, that I was in hope she would change her mind, and knew that it would be impossible to secure the rooms requested for a person unknown to the proprietors or attachés of the hotel.

The explanation seemed to satisfy her. Turning to me suddenly, she exclaimed:

“You have not had your dinner, Lizzie, and must be hungry. I nearly forgot about it in the joy of seeing you. You must go down to the table right away.”

She pulled the bell-rope, and a servant appearing, she ordered him to give me my dinner. I followed him down-stairs, and he led me into the dining-hall, and seated me at a table in one corner of the room. I was giving my order, when the steward came forward and gruffly said:

“You are in the wrong room.”

“I was brought here by the waiter,” I replied.

“It makes no difference; I will find you another place where you can eat your dinner.”

I got up from the table and followed him, and when outside the door, said to him:

“It is very strange that you should permit me to be seated at the table in the dining-room only for the sake of ordering me to leave it the next moment.”

“Are you not Mrs. Clarke’s servant?” was his abrupt question.

“I am with Mrs. Clark.”

“It is all the same; servants are not allowed to eat in the large dining-room. Here, this way; you must take your dinner in the servants’ hall.”

Hungry and humiliated as I was, I was willing to follow to any place to get my dinner, for I had been riding all day, and had not tasted a mouthful since early morning.

On reaching the servants’ hall we found the door of the room locked. The waiter left me standing in the passage while he went to inform the clerk of the fact.

In a few minutes the obsequious clerk came blustering down the hall:

“Did you come out of the street, or from Mrs. Clarke’s room?”

“From Mrs. Clarke’s room,” I meekly answered. My gentle words seemed to quiet him, and then he explained:

“It is after the regular hour for dinner. The room is locked up, and Annie has gone out with the key.”

My pride would not let me stand longer in the hall.

“Very well,” I remarked, as I began climbing the stairs, “I will tell Mrs. Clarke that I cannot get any dinner.”

He looked after me, with a scowl on his face:

“You need not put on airs! I understand the whole thing.”

I said nothing, but continued to climb the stairs, thinking to myself: “Well, if you understand the whole thing, it is strange that you should put the widow of ex-President Abraham Lincoln in a three-cornered room in the attic of this miserable hotel.”

When I reached Mrs. Lincoln’s rooms, tears of humiliation and vexation were in my eyes.

“What is the matter, Lizzie?” she asked.

“I cannot get any dinner.”

“Cannot get any dinner! What do you mean?”

I then told her of all that had transpired below.

“The insolent, overbearing people!” she fiercely exclaimed. “Never mind, Lizzie, you shall have your dinner. Put on your bonnet and shawl.”

“What for?”

“What for! Why, we will go out of the hotel, and get you something to eat where they know how to behave decently”; and Mrs. Lincoln already was tying the strings of her bonnet before the glass.

Her impulsiveness alarmed me.

“Surely, Mrs. Lincoln, you do not intend to go out on the street to-night?”

“Yes I do. Do you suppose I am going to have you starve, when we can find something to eat on every corner?”

“But you forget. You are here as Mrs. Clarke and not as Mrs. Lincoln. You came alone, and the people already suspect that everything is not right. If you go outside of the hotel to-night, they will accept the fact as evidence against you.”

“Nonsense; what do you suppose I care for what these lowbred people think? Put on your things.”

“No, Mrs. Lincoln, I shall not go outside of the hotel to-night, for I realize your situation, if you do not. Mrs. Lincoln has no reason to care what these people may say about her as Mrs. Lincoln, but she should be prudent, and give them no opportunity to say anything about her as Mrs. Clarke.”

It was with difficulty I could convince her that she should act with caution. She was so frank and impulsive that she never once thought that her actions might be misconstrued. It did not occur to her that she might order dinner to be served in my room, so I went to bed without a mouthful to eat.

The next morning Mrs. Lincoln knocked at my door before six o’clock:

“Come, Elizabeth, get up, I know you must be hungry. Dress yourself quickly and we will go out and get some breakfast. I was unable to sleep last night for thinking of you being forced to go to bed without anything to eat.”

I dressed myself as quickly as I could, and together we went out and took breakfast, at a restaurant on Broadway, some place between 609 and the St. Denis Hotel. I do not give the number, as I prefer leaving it to conjecture. Of one thing I am certain—the proprietor of the restaurant little dreamed who one of his guests was that morning.

After breakfast we walked up Broadway, and entering Union Square Park, took a seat on one of the benches under the trees, watched the children at play, and talked over the situation. Mrs. Lincoln told me: “Lizzie, yesterday morning I called for the Herald at the breakfast table, and on looking over the list of diamond brokers advertised, I selected the firm of W. II. Brady & Co., 609 Broadway. After breakfast I walked down to the house, and tried to sell them a lot of jewelry. I gave my name as Mrs. Clarke. I first saw Mr. Judd, a member of the firm, a very pleasant gentleman. We were unable to agree about the price. He went back into the office, where a stout gentleman was seated at the desk, but I could not hear what he said. [I know now what was said, and so shall the reader, in parentheses. Mr. Brady has since told me that he remarked to Mr. Judd that the woman must be crazy to ask such outrageous prices, and to get rid of her as soon as possible.] Soon after Mr. Judd came back to the counter, another gentleman, Mr. Keyes, as I have since learned, a silent partner in the house, entered the store. He came to the counter, and in looking over my jewelry discovered my name inside of one of the rings. I had forgotten the ring, and when I saw him looking at the name so earnestly, I snatched the bauble from him and put it into my pocket. I hastil...