Page:Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen.pdf/399

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Inauguration of President McKinley
345

thanked him warmly, as I handed him back his coveted decoration, for, indeed, I fully appreciated his loyalty in bringing it to show me. Since that meeting he has been retired from active service, but it is to be hoped that so gallant a gentleman and efficient an officer may long be spared to his friends and his country. I can never forget his kindness to my brother during the king’s last days on earth.

One object of my visit to Washington was to ask a favor of the Masonic fraternity; so, while at the Shoreham, I sent a letter to Mr. Frederic Webber, Secretary of the Supreme Council, thirty-third degree, asking him to call at my apartments, a request with which he very promptly complied. He remembered me perfectly from our meeting in 1887, when he had been one of the thirteen Masons of high degree to call on the party of Queen Kapiolani; of that committee of the Supreme Council, General Albert Pike, now gone to the great majority, was the head. Besides this, Mr. Webber was, during the lifetime of Governor Dominis, in correspondence with my husband on matters connected with the order.

I showed Mr. Webber my jewel of the Mystic Shrine, which I prize very highly, and asked if I might be permitted to wear my husband’s Masonic jewels; to which he replied in the affirmative, and then added he would like also to present me with a medal which was ornamented on one side with certain emblems of the thirty-third degree of Masonry, and on the other with a bas-relief likeness of General Pike. To thus receive permission to use the decorations or insignia of Masonry belonging to my