and milk that he once ate at her house.  He could not remember it—­on the contrary, he only remembered that he had always fared well at her house.  “Well,” said she, “one day you came along after we had got through dinner, and we had eaten up everything, and I could give you nothing but a bowl of bread and milk; you ate it, and when you got up you said it was good enough for the President of the United States.”  The good woman, remembering the remark, had come in from the country, making a journey of eight or ten miles, to relate to Lincoln this incident, which in her mind had doubtless taken the form of prophecy.  Lincoln placed her at her ease, chatted with her of old times, and dismissed her in the most happy and complacent frame of mind.

Among the judicious friends of Lincoln who gave him timely counsel at this important epoch of his life was Judge John D. Caton, who, though a Democrat, was a far-sighted man who saw plainly the tendency of political affairs and was anxious for the preservation of the Union.  “I met Lincoln in Springfield,” writes Judge Caton, “and we had a conference in the law-library.  I told him it was plain that he had a war on his hands; that there was a determination on the part of the South to secede from the Union, and that there would be throughout the North an equal determination to maintain the Union.  I advised him to avoid bringing on the war by precipitate action, but let the Southerners begin it; to forbear as long as forbearance could be tolerated, in order to unite the North the more effectually to support his hands in the struggle that was certain to come; that by such a course the great body of the people of the North, of all parties, would come to his support.  Mr. Lincoln listened intently, and replied that he foresaw that the struggle was inevitable, but that it would be his desire and effort to unite the people in support of the Government and for the maintenance of the Union; that he was aware that no single party could sustain him successfully, and that he must rely upon the great masses of the people of all parties, and he would try to pursue such a course as would secure their support.  The interview continued perhaps an hour.”

Judge David Davis, a most intimate and confidential friend of Lincoln, states that the latter was firmly determined to appoint “Democrats and Republicans alike to office.”  Mr. Lamon corroborates the statement, pointedly remarking:  “He felt that his strength lay in conciliation at the outset; that was his ruling conviction during all those months of preparation for the great task before him.  It showed itself not only in the appointments which he sought to make but in those which he did make.  Harboring no jealousies, entertaining no fears concerning his personal interests in the future, he called around him the most powerful of his late rivals—­Seward, Chase, Bates—­and unhesitatingly gave into their hands powers which most Presidents would have