# The President's Daughter (Britton)/Chapter 78

The afternoon following Mr. Harding's speech at the Fairgrounds was an exciting one also. I was visiting that day with Ellen Lucile Mezger Stoll, whose brother, Roscoe Mezger, was married to Florence Harding's daughter-in-law, Mrs. Esther DeWolfe. Ellen Lucile's little twin girls were about five years old and Ellen and I took them with us, it seems to me, ​when we went down to witness the program scheduled for that afternoon in honor of President Harding. It was to include a parade of many organizations, which would file past the Presbyterian Church at the corner of Church and Prospect Streets, where a temporary grandstand, gayly beflagged, had been erected for the President and his party.
Ellen Lucile, the babies, and I found a good place to stand on the steps of the house next door to the church, and cheered lustily with the crowd as President Harding, Miss Daisy Harding, and other members of the President's party descended from their automobiles and mounted the steps of the grandstand. President Harding looked stunning, and Ellen Lucile turned to me and said, "Isn't he just the sweetest thing?" I told Miss Daisy Harding afterwards that she was beautiful, too, and it seemed to me a real pity that she, who typified everything lovely in American womanhood, could not grace the social throne of the First Lady of the Land, instead of Florence Harding. She had once written to me about her brother, "He looks like a real President, Nan," and I simply extended that expression to her when I hold her she herself looked like a real First Lady.
One segment of the parade consisted of a number of Civil War veterans, and I observed from my post where I stood on tiptoe that the President was shaking hands with these dear old fellows. When they passed where Ellen Lucile and I were standing I suddenly spied my own Grandfather Williams, whom I had not even known was in town for the celebration. I broke through the ranks of people and ran out into the street to greet him. The dear old darling! I thought. He was probably as staunch a Republican as there is in the United States. The day was exceedingly warm and the heavy military belt Grandfather was wearing had become irksome and he had removed it and was now carrying it over his arm. He kissed me before the crowd and said, "Did you see me shake hands with the President? He even remembered me! He said, 'Oh, yes, I know you all right, you needn't tell me your name!'" Grandfather beamed his pride. I thought to myself as I patted affectionately the arm of this proud ​member of the G. A. R., "Probably my sweetheart was thinking, 'This is Nan's grandfather. I'd like to be especially nice to him!'" That would be just like my sweetheart.
I returned to Chicago after that trip just as soon as I knew Warren Harding was enroute to Washington. I had not seen him in private at all, nor even attempted to advise him of my presence in Marion, but somehow I cannot tell anyone how inexpressibly happy it always made me just to be near him. I did not need to be sharing with him an embrace or kiss in order to feel ecstatic happiness. Just to be near him satisfied me.
In my next letter I told him all about my visit to Marion, how I had listened to his speech at the Fairgrounds, and even in detail of how I had gone with Mrs. Mouser to Dr. Harding's to call upon him and Mrs. Harding and had found him gone, but had talked briefly with Mrs. Harding. But, as I felt, letters didn't amount to much those days. Washington was such a long way off!