A weary-looking Hillary Clinton said Wednesday evening at her first public appearance since she conceded to Donald Trump that she considered cancelling her speech to the children's advocacy group but kept the commitment out of respect for her mentor.

'I will admit coming here tonight wasn't the easiest thing for me,' she said at the Children's Defense Fund's gala in Washington, D.C.

The failed presidential candidate added: 'There have been a few times this past week when all I wanted to do is just to curl up with a good book or our dogs and never leave the house again.'

Clinton arrived and left the event at the Newseum through a private entrance and didn't stick around to be hounded by her traveling press corps.

They had been invited to cover the event by campaign staff, several of whom were with her last night. One said they're still on payroll through the end of this week.

Quoting the organization's founder, Marian Wright Edelman, Clinton said, 'Service is the rent we pay for living.'

'You don't get to stop paying rent just because things don't go your way', Clinton said.

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Hillary Clinton said Wednesday evening, at her first public appearance since she conceded to Donald Trump a week ago, that coming to the event was difficult

The failed presidential candidate said 'there have been a few times this past week when all I wanted to do is just to curl up with a good book or our dogs and never leave the house again'

Clinton said she considered staying home and missing the event several times over the last week

Clinton said she drew inspiration from Edelman as she prepared for the speaking engagement she agreed to before her stunning defeat in the presidential election.

'If there's anyone who knows how to pick yourself up, and get back on your feet and get to work, it is Marian,' Clinton said. 'She has been doing it all of her life, and she has been helping the rest of us do it, too.'

Clinton interned for Edelman during law school. She came back to work for her at the newly formed, Massachusetts-based non-profit, the Children's Defense Fund, when she graduated.

Edelman and others in the room last night reminded her that when 'you get knocked down, you get back up,' Clinton said.

'I will admit coming here tonight wasn't the easiest thing for me,' she said at the Children's Defense Fund's gala in Washington, D.C.

The losing presidential candidate spoke for 20 minutes and left - half the time she typically spent talking on the stump

The arc of moral universe can 'feel awfully long,' said Clinton, reciting Martin Luther King, Jr's famed observation that it 'bends toward justice.'

'Believe me - I would know,' she said to laughter.

Clinton told attendees, 'I know many of you are deeply disappointed about the results of the election. I am too, more than I can ever express.

'Our campaign was never about one person or even one election - it was about the country that we love and about building an America that is hopeful inclusive and big-hearted.'

In spite of her defeat at the ballot box, Clinton said, 'We have work to do.'

'I ask you to stay engaged, stay engaged on every level,' she said. 'We need you. America needs you, your energy, your ambition, your talent. That's how we get through this. That's how we help to make our contributions to bend the arc of the moral universe towards justice.'

Clinton told them, frankly, 'I know this isn't easy. I know that over the past week a lot of people have asked themselves whether America is the country we thought it was.

'The divisions laid bare by this election run deep. But please listen to me when I say this: America is worth it. Our children are worth it. Believe in our country, fight for our values, and never, ever give up.'

In her defeat, Clinton says she drew inspiration from the organization's founder, Marian Wright Edelman, whom she's seen hugging at the top of her remarks at DC's Newseum

Edelman taught her that 'when you get knocked down, you get back up,' Clinton said

The former first lady and secretary of state who has been criticized for her dogged pursuit of high-profile positions told gala attendees, 'I didn't get into public service to hold high office.'

Forty-five years ago, when she began her work at the Children's Defense Fund, Clinton, the first woman to win a major party's presidential nomination, said 'that would have seemed an absolute, incredibly wrong-headed view.

'But I did decide to be an activist to use my law degree to help kids.'

Clinton said: 'I believe the measure of any society is how we treat our children. And as we move forward into a new, and in many ways, an uncertain future, I think that must be the test for America and for ourselves'

It's unknown what she will do next. She could rejoin her husband's charity, still named the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, or choose to do something different entirely

Clinton said in the short, 20-minute speech that lasted half as long as the ones she delivered daily on the stump, that she still believes that Americans are 'stronger together' - her campaign slogan - 'when we are lifting people up.'

'I believe the measure of any society is how we treat our children,' she said. 'And as we move forward into a new, and in many ways, an uncertain future, I think that must be the test for America and for ourselves.'

A nod to the nation's sitting president, who will see much of his work unraveled in the next administration, Clinton said she had 'hoped to have had the opportunity to build on the progress that President Obama has made.

Clinton imagined the other woman who she said she draws 'hope and sustenance from', mother Dorothy, now deceased, travelling to California alone on a train when she was eight with her five-year-old sister to begin a new life.

'Ended up on her own working as a housemaid. She beat the odds, she found a way to offer me the boundless love and support she never received herself,' Clinton reflected.

Clinton said in the 20-minute speech that she still believes that Americans are 'stronger together' - her campaign slogan

Speaking at the event she said: 'America is still the greatest country in the world,' she said. 'This is still the place where anyone can beat the odds. It's up to each and every one of us to keep working to make America better and stronger and fairer'

The 69-year-old former senator, secretary of state and two-time White House contender said, 'I think about her every day. And sometimes I think about her on that train.

'I wish I could walk down the aisle and find the little wooden seats where she sat, holding tight to her younger sister, all alone and terrified. She doesn't yet know how much more she will have to face and even suffer.'

It would be years before Dorothy would find the strength to escape, Clinton said. At that moment, on the train, 'her whole future is unknown.'

'I dream of going up to her and sitting next to her and taking her in my arms,' she said and telling her, 'you will survive, you will have a family of your own...and as hard as it might be to imagine, your daughter will...win more than 62 million votes for President of the United States.'

'America is still the greatest country in the world,' she said. 'This is still the place where anyone can beat the odds. It's up to each and every one of us to keep working to make America better and stronger and fairer.'

Clinton is known to have left her Chappaqua, New York home at least two times since her concession speech last Wednesday in Manhattan. She went on a walk with her dogs and attended a staff party at her campaign headquarters on Friday night.

Her speech last night, at Washington's Newseum museum, located blocks from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue, marked her formal reentry into public life after days of seclusion.

It's unknown what she will do next. She could rejoin her husband's charity, still named the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation, or choose to do something different entirely.

Hillary and her husband Bill are each millionaires, having taken advantage of the speaking circuit before she announced her second bid for president, and they own three homes in New York and Washington.

Clinton waves after speaking to the Children's Defense Fund in Washington

Clinton met Children's Defense Fund founder Edelman when she was in college. Her mentor said last night that she realized she's known Clinton longer than almost anyone alive, other than her siblings, including Bill.

While Clinton was a student at Yale Law School she went undercover at the behest of Edelman, visiting private schools in the South and evaluating their treatment of black students.

As a staff attorney at the Children's Defense Fund Clinton spearheaded a project to determine why so many young people were not in school

Even after Clinton moved on professionally, relocating to Washington to work on the House's Watergate committee and later to Arkansas to be with Bill, eventually becoming the state's first lady, she stayed on the non-profit's board.

They parted ways after 20 years when her husband became President of the United States.

Edelman called her a 'dear friend' at the Wednesday gala.

'I am so proud of her in so many ways,' Edelaman said. 'She has always been able to figure out how to get done whatever needed to get done, and I've always appreciated her for that.'

The 45-year friend of the former first lady ran down Clinton's accomplishments, stopping as she reached her nomination for president so the audience could clap.

Edelman declared Clinton the winner of the national popular vote and told her organization's backers, 'We're gonna say she is the people's president.'

'She is our president,' Edelman proclaimed to applause.

One day, Edelman said woman like her daughter or granddaughter will sit in the Oval Office - 'and we can thank Hillary Rodham Clinton for that.'

Clinton's only public remarks about her defeat prior to Wednesday event were in her concession speech, a week ago today in New York City.

She reflected on her loss in a private call with donors over the weekend, telling them FBI Director James Comey was largely responsible.

'There are lots of reasons why an election like this is not successful,' she said. 'But our analysis is that Comey’s letter raising doubts that were groundless, baseless, proven to be, stopped our momentum.'

'Just as we were back up on the upward trajectory, the second letter from Comey essentially doing what we knew it would—saying there was no there there—was a real motivator for Trump’s voters,' she stated.

Clinton told her backers, 'Trump spent the last four days of this campaign engaged in a nonstop attack on me personally, and the result is the result.'

She tip-toed around her opponent as she delivered her address on Wednesday evening, blocks away from his recently opened hotel, Trump International, and his new home at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.