with polished brass railings. On the North side is an ample porte cochere, above which is a large stained glass window, lighting the staircase within. On the west front is a wide piazza, commanding the gorgeous sunsets known to this latitude. The main hall might be called baronial in its dimensions. It has panelings and ceilings of oak, the latter supported on polished oak columns with richly-carved capitals. The stairs are massively built in oak, decorated with carvings, and the whole is set off by the great fire-place which fronts the visitor as he enters, and gives a home-like glow to the scene. To the right is a small reception-room, and to the left the large parlors and drawing-room. In the rear is the library, opening on the piazza before mentioned. It is finished in mahogany, and the shelves are filled with books in handsome bindings, the treasured companions of Mr. Blaine's leisure and the instruments of his studies and literary toil. On the other side of the hall is the diningroom, also finished in mahogany. All these apartments are appropriately but not extravagantly furnished, in a manner bespeaking rather quiet good taste than love of display. To this house Mr. Blaine removed with his family from his Fifteenth-street house, near McPherson square, which he had occupied during the Speakership. It did not give him the satisfaction he had expected. His retirement from public life after the death of Garfield, and his absorption in the researches necessary for writing "Twenty Years of Congress," made the big house an unnecessary care and burden. The only festivity which took place in it during his occupancy was the marriage of his eldest daughter to Major Coppinger of the regular Army, an event which still further diminished his household, one son being engaged in business in the West, while two children were at school. All things considered, Mr. Blaine gave up without much regret his "house beautiful," which required a large staff of servants and constant supervision, and returned to the condition of tenant in a brown-stone front on Lafayette square, a quiet, but aristocratic nook, just south of the Decatur mansion, and within a stone's throw of Mr. Corcoran's, the venerable George Bancroft's, the White House, and other notable structures. His practical wisdom was shown in the ease with which he secured for the house he had built a very remunerative rental from a Chicago millionaire, with ample means and inclination for the social entertaining to which it is so well adapted. Yet it is not in any of the four or five houses he has occupied in Washington, that Mr. Blaine has ever felt so truly at home as in the big, rambling, yet not unsightly structure at Augusta, CHAPTER XII. SEEN BY ENGLISH EYES. In the London World of July 13th, 1881, Mr. Blaine is described by an English journalist. The article is one of a series on "Celebrities at Home." It describes the home Mr. Blaine then occupied, and gives the features of an interview with him there, he then being Secretary of State. The article, omitting certain portions merely biographical, is here given : "In one of a group of four tall houses, built of brown stone and red brick, situated in Fifteenth Street, Washington, and bearing the number 821, dwells the American Secretary of State. With the assurance of meeting with the kindest welcome from a statesman universally known for his hospitality and his amiability, and of being entertained with his charming conversation for a few minutes, if the pressing morning duties of the Premier will at all permit it, we stroll along the quiet street, and, arriving at the neat doorstep, pull the bell at Mr. Blaine's. Our cards are taken by a young negress, who, in English undefiled by the slave's jargon of the Southern plantation, makes the usual cautious remark that she does not know if Mr. Blaine is at home. Four large rooms constitute the drawing-room suite, the ground floor, at Mr. Blaine's. A bow-window on the street adds to the size of the rooms, and affords further scope for the loving ornamentation with which each of these apartments is endowed. There are many valuable objects here; much rare china on the walls and in cabinets; fine pictures; some good statuary; but the greatest charm of the place is its home-like spirit, which enters the heart of the visitor, and tells him that the Premier and his family specially inhabit these rooms, and keep no corner of their house sacred. to the cold perfunctory ceremony of merely receiving visitors. Mr. Secretary Blaine's house is incontestably the most popular in Washington. On Wednesday afternoons-the days in Washington when, during the Session of Congress, the wives of Cabinet Ministers and those of foreign Ambassadors receive there is no house in the American capital so crowded. Whatever the weather, however thin the attendance in other drawing rooms, there is always a throng at Mr. Blaine's. Nor is this due to the importance of his present position as Secretary of State. It was the same when he was in Congress, whether as a member or Speaker of the House; it was the same when he was in |