It's a bargain, isn't it? You accept the position in my Cabinet?"

"Of course, Mr. President, but if my duties are no heavier than I find them on this occasion, I fear I shall be of little help."

"You've been of the greatest service to me. You've confirmed my decision on a great problem of State. Come now and see Mother and the children. I want you to know them and like them."

He led her quickly into the family apartment and introduced her to Mrs. Lincoln. He found her in the midst of a grave discussion with Lizzie Garland, her colored dressmaker.

"This is old Grizzly's lovely daughter, Miss Betty Winter, Mother. She has joined the administration, stands squarely with us against the world, the flesh, the devil-and her father! I told her you'd give her the keys to the house"

With a wave of his big hand he was gone.

Mrs. Lincoln's greeting was simple and hearty. In half an hour Betty had found a place in her heart for life, the boys were claiming her as their own, and a train of influences were set in motion destined to " make history.

CHAPTER V

THE FIRST SHOT

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The first month of the new administration passed in a strange peace that proved to be the calm before the storm. On the first day of April, All Fool's Day, Mr. Seward decided to bring to a definite issue the question of supreme authority in the government. That Abraham Lincoln was the nominal President was true, of course. Mr. Seward generously decided to allow him to remain nominally at the head of the Nation and assume himself the full responsibilities of a Dictatorship.

The Secretary of State strolled leisurely into the executive office more careless in dress than usual, the knot of his cravat under his left ear, a huge lighted cigar in his hand. He handed the President a folded sheet of official paper, bowed carelessly and retired. He had drawn up his proclamation under the title:

SOME THOUGHTS FOR THE PRESIDENT'S CONSIDERATION.

In this remarkable document he proposed to assume the Dictatorship and outlined his policy as director of the Nation's affairs.

He would immediately provoke war with Great Britain, Russia, Spain and France!

The dark-visaged giant adjusted his glasses and

read this paper with a smile of incredulous amazement. He wiped his glasses and read it again. And then without consultation with a single human being, and without a moment's hesitation he wrote a brief reply to the great man and his generous offer. There was no bluster, no wrath, no demand for an apology to his insulted dignity, but in the simplest and friendliest and most direct language he informed his Secretary that if a dictator were needed to save the country he would undertake the dangerous and difficult job himself inasmuch as he had been called by the people to be their Commander-in-Chief, and that he expected the coöperation, advice and support of all the members of his Cabinet.

He did not even refer to the wild scheme of plunging the country into war with two-thirds of the civilized world. The bare announcement of such a suggestion would have driven the Secretary from public life. The quiet man who presided over the turbulent Cabinet never hinted to one of its members that such a document had reached his hands.

But as the shades of night fell over the Capitol on that first day of April, 1861, there was one distinguished statesman within the city who knew that a real man had been elected President and that he was going to wield the power placed in his hands without a tremor of fear or an instant's hesitation.

It took many months for other members of his Cabinet to learn this—but there was no more trouble with his Secretary of State.. He became at once his ? loyal, earnest and faithful counsellor.

On April the 6th, the fleet was sent to sea under sealed orders to relieve Fort Sumter in the harbor

of Charleston, South Carolina. The President had been loath to commit the act which must inevitably provoke war-unless the whole movement of Secession in the South was one of political bluff. The highest military authority of the country had advised him that the fort could not be held by any force at present visible, and that its evacuation was inevitable in any event.

His Cabinet, with two exceptions, were against any attempt to relieve it. The sentiment of the people of the North was bitterly opposed to war

South.

on the

On April the 7th, the fleet was at sea on its way to the Southern coast, its guns shotted, its great battle flags streaming in the wind.

In accordance with the amenities of war the President notified General Beauregard, Commander of the Southern forces in Charleston Harbor, that he had sent his fleet to put provisions into Sumter, but not at present to put in men, arms or ammunition, unless the fort should be attacked.

On the night this message was dispatched Roger A. Pryor, of Virginia, made a speech in Charleston, from the balcony of the Mills Hotel to practically the entire white population of the city. Its message was fierce, direct, electric. It was summed up in a single

sentence:

"Strike the first armed blow in defense of Southern rights and within one hour by Shrewsbury clock, old Virginia will stand, her battle flags flying, by your side!"

On the morning of the 11th General Beauregard sent Pryor as a special messenger to Major Anderson

demanding the surrender of Fort Sumter, and on his refusal, which was a matter of course, instructed him to go at once to the nearest battery and order its Commander to open fire.

The formalities at Sumter quickly ended, Pryor repaired to Battery Johnson, met the young Captain of artillery in command and presented his order.

With a shout the Captain threw his arms around the messenger and with streaming eyes cried:

"Your wonderful speech last night made this glorious thing possible! You shall have the immortal honor of firing the first gun!"

And then a strange revulsion of feeling-or was it a flash of foreboding from the hell-lit, battlescorched future! The orator hesitated and turned pale. It was an honor he could not now decline and yet he instinctively shrank from it.

He mopped the perspiration from his brow and looked about in a helpless way. His eye suddenly rested on a grey-haired, stalwart sentinel passing with quick firm tread. He recognized him immediately as a distinguished fellow Virginian, a man of large wealth and uncompromising opinions on Southern rights.

When Virginia had refused to secede, he cursed his countrymen as a set of hesitating cowards, left. the State and moved to South Carolina. He had volunteered among the first and carried a musket as a private soldier in spite of his snow-white hairs.

Pryor turned to the Commandant:

"I appreciate, sir, the honor you would do me, but I could not think of taking it from one more worthy than myself. There is the man whose devotion to our cause is greater than mine."