the Pennsylvania Railroad, was ready, and sped away to Washington, at sixty miles an hour. A little later, Colonel Rockwell told the President, that Mrs. Garfield had started, when he replied, with evident feeling, "God bless the little woman! I hope the shock won't break her down." Her arrival was delayed until after 7 o'clock by an ac-. cident to the engine. The persons present in the sick-room, retired, to allow Mrs. Garfield to meet her husband alone, as he had requested. They remained together only five minutes; but the ef fect of this brief interview was soon seen in the rallying of the almost dying man. At the end of that time the doctors were again admitted to the room. They found the President perfectly conscious, but weaker. Within two hours, however, he began to show signs of reaction; and his condition gradually improved during the night.

These were the sad scenes within the White House walls. Outside and beyond, the world was in a fever. Hardly had the President fallen by the assassin's bullet, before the telegraph had winged the news to all parts of the land. As the dispatch flashed along: "The President has been shot, the assassin arrested," those, who heard it could scarcely believe it. The fact was too terrible to be true that the good and able President had been, on that bright second of July, shot down in the nation's capital! Rapidly the terrible news spread. Before noon there was scarcely a man,

THE FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT.

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woman or child, who did not know that the Chief Magistrate had been shot. But few of the details of the crime were known; and speculation had full swing, not only in debating the probable results of the attack on the President, but in seeking some plausible motive for the crime.

After 12 o'clock, the news came slightly more in detail, and, with the knowledge, that the President was still living, and that the doctors were not hopeless of his recovery, men breathed more freely. The newspapers everywhere were receiving dispatches every few minutes; and, as they came, they were promptly bulletined. These bulletin-boards were the centres of attraction; and the sidewalks and streets in front of them were soon crowded with men, who stood in the broiling sun, and forgot the heat in their intense eagerness for the latest scrap of information. At noon the "extras" appeared; and the demand for them was so great as to be beyond the power of the press to supply them. The information, given in the early dispatches, was very brief, but reassuring-the President was conscious; the doctors thought that he might live; the assasin was in jail under strong guard. Late in the afternoon, the dispatches became hourly more despondent; and the people waited with fear, and yet with a hope almost forlorn.

At last darkness fell. The expected announcement of the President's death had not (thank

God) been made. The crowd still lingered about the bulletin-boards, and eagerly read the dispatches. At 9 o'clock, it was announced, in a telegram from Postmaster-General James, that the sufferer was sleeping, and that his pulse was not so high as it had been. This was, at least, a ray of sunshine among the shadows. Just before 11 P. M., when the fact was posted that the patient had rallied, and could converse with his attendants, the crowds gave vent to hearty expressions of joy, and gratification, and hope. Still they lingered; and the same scenes that had so distinguished that Saturday evening from all other evenings in their lives, continued into the early hours of Sunday.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

HOURS OF SUFFERING.

HE symptoms of death, which had seemed so marked during the long reaches of the

TH

afternoon and the early hours of the evening of July 2d, grew fainter by 7.40. Shortly after, the patient slept naturally for half an hour. When he awoke, he said to Mrs. James, who was sitting at the bedside: "Do you know where Mrs. Garfield is now?"

"Oh, yes," she answered, "she is close by, watching and praying for her husband."

I

Looking at her with an anxious face, he said; "I want her to go to bed. Will you tell her, that say, that if she will go to bed, I will turn right over; and I feel sure, that I can go to sleep and sleep all night? Tell her," he exclaimed with sudden energy, "I will sleep all night, if she will only do what I ask."

Mrs. James conveyed the message to Mrs. Garfield, who said at once: "Go back, and tell him, that I am retiring."

She returned with the answer; and the President, turning on his right side, dropped into a quiet sleep almost instantly. At 10.20 the symp44*

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toms were more favorable, and afforded a ground for hope. The change was certainly marked and gratifying. At 11 P. M., the symptoms were still favorable, and when midnight came, the sufferer was in a deep and restful sleep. About the White House and all around the White House grounds there was no sleep. There watched the people; for the heart of the Nation was with its President.

Sunday dawned, cloudless and fair to see. During the day, which repeated some of the features of the day before, better arrangements were made for the management of the case; and the recovery from the shock permitted more attention to be paid to details.

The arrangements, by which the President was secluded from noise or disturbanee of any kind, were very complete. Only privileged visitors were allowed to go up-stairs. They were received in the private secretary's room, which opens by a door-way to the left into a room in the southeast corner of the building, occupied by the executive clerks. Here the bulletins from the physicians were brought; and a telegraph instrument, at the end of the corridor just outside, sent the tidings round the world. To the right of the private secretary's room is the Cabinet-room. Next in the suit comes the library. Beyond this is the room, known as the State bed-chamber; and next to this, come two rooms in the southwest corner, the President's chamber and dress