"Ruth is a dear girl, Philip, and has as much firmness of purpose as

ever, but don't you see she has just discovered that she is fond of

society? Don't you let her see you are selfish about it, is my advice."

The last evening they were to spend in Fallkill, they were at the

Montagues, and Philip hoped that he would find Ruth in a different mood.

But she was never more gay, and there was a spice of mischief in her eye

and in her laugh. "Confound it," said Philip to himself, "she's in a

perfect twitter."

He would have liked to quarrel with her, and fling himself out of the

house in tragedy style, going perhaps so far as to blindly wander off

miles into the country and bathe his throbbing brow in the chilling rain

of the stars, as people do in novels; but he had no opportunity. For

Ruth was as serenely unconscious of mischief as women can be at times,

and fascinated him more than ever with her little demurenesses and

half-confidences. She even said "Thee" to him once in reproach for a

cutting speech he began. And the sweet little word made his heart beat

like a trip-hammer, for never in all her life had she said "thee" to him

before.

Was she fascinated with Harry's careless 'bon homie' and gay assurance?

Both chatted away in high spirits, and made the evening whirl along in

the most mirthful manner. Ruth sang for Harry, and that young gentleman

turned the leaves for her at the piano, and put in a bass note now and

then where he thought it would tell.

Yes, it was a merry evening, and Philip was heartily glad when it was

over, and the long leave-taking with the family was through with.

"Farewell Philip. Good night Mr. Brierly," Ruth's clear voice sounded

after them as they went down the walk.

And she spoke Harry's name last, thought Philip.

CHAPTER XXIII.

"O see ye not yon narrow road

So thick beset wi' thorns and briers?

That is the Path of Righteousness,

Though after it but few inquires.

"And see ye not yon braid, braid road,

That lies across the lily leven?

That is the Path of Wickedness,

Though some call it the road to Heaven."

Thomas the Rhymer.

Phillip and Harry reached New York in very different states of mind.

Harry was buoyant. He found a letter from Col. Sellers urging him to go

to Washington and confer with Senator Dilworthy. The petition was in his

hands.

It had been signed by everybody of any importance in Missouri, and would

be presented immediately.

"I should go on myself," wrote the Colonel, "but I am engaged in the

invention of a process for lighting such a city as St. Louis by means of

water; just attach my machine to the water-pipes anywhere and the

decomposition of the fluid begins, and you will have floods of light for

the mere cost of the machine. I've nearly got the lighting part, but I

want to attach to it a heating, cooking, washing and ironing apparatus.

It's going to be the great thing, but we'd better keep this appropriation

going while I am perfecting it."

Harry took letters to several congressmen from his uncle and from Mr.

Duff Brown, each of whom had an extensive acquaintance in both houses

where they were well known as men engaged in large private operations for

the public good and men, besides, who, in the slang of the day,

understood the virtues of "addition, division and silence."

Senator Dilworthy introduced the petition into the Senate with the remark

that he knew, personally, the signers of it, that they were men

interested; it was true, in the improvement of the country, but he

believed without any selfish motive, and that so far as he knew the

signers were loyal. It pleased him to see upon the roll the names of

many colored citizens, and it must rejoice every friend of humanity to

know that this lately emancipated race were intelligently taking part in

the development of the resources of their native land. He moved the

reference of the petition to the proper committee.

Senator Dilworthy introduced his young friend to influential members,

as a person who was very well informed about the Salt Lick Extension of

the Pacific, and was one of the Engineers who had made a careful survey

of Columbus River; and left him to exhibit his maps and plans and to show

the connection between the public treasury, the city of Napoleon and

legislation for the benefit off the whole country.

Harry was the guest of Senator Dilworthy. There was scarcely any good

movement in which the Senator was not interested. His house was open to

all the laborers in the field of total abstinence, and much of his time

was taken up in attending the meetings of this cause. He had a Bible

class in the Sunday school of the church which he attended, and he

suggested to Harry that he might take a class during the time he remained

in Washington, Mr. Washington Hawkins had a class. Harry asked the

Senator if there was a class of young ladies for him to teach, and after

that the Senator did not press the subject.

Philip, if the truth must be told, was not well satisfied with his

western prospects, nor altogether with the people he had fallen in with.

The railroad contractors held out large but rather indefinite promises.

Opportunities for a fortune he did not doubt existed in Missouri, but for

himself he saw no better means for livelihood than the mastery of the

profession he had rather thoughtlessly entered upon. During the summer

he had made considerable practical advance in the science of engineering;

he had been diligent, and made himself to a certain extent necessary to

the work he was engaged on. The contractors called him into their

consultations frequently, as to the character of the country he had been

over, and the cost of constructing the road, the nature of the work, etc.

Still Philip felt that if he was going to make either reputation or money

as an engineer, he had a great deal of hard study before him, and it is

to his credit that he did not shrink from it. While Harry was in

Washington dancing attendance upon the national legislature and making

the acquaintance of the vast lobby that encircled it, Philip devoted

himself day and night, with an energy and a concentration he was capable

of, to the learning and theory of his profession, and to the science of

railroad building. He wrote some papers at this time for the "Plow, the

Loom and the Anvil," upon the strength of materials, and especially upon

bridge-building, which attracted considerable attention, and were copied

into the English "Practical Magazine." They served at any rate to raise

Philip in the opinion of his friends the contractors, for practical men

have a certain superstitious estimation of ability with the pen, and

though they may a little despise the talent, they are quite ready to make

use of it.

Philip sent copies of his performances to Ruth's father and to other

gentlemen whose good opinion he coveted, but he did not rest upon his

laurels. Indeed, so diligently had he applied himself, that when it came

time for him to return to the West, he felt himself, at least in theory,

competent to take charge of a division in the field.

CHAPTER XXIV.

The capital of the Great Republic was a new world to country-bred

Washington Hawkins. St. Louis was a greater city, but its floating.

population did not hail from great distances, and so it had the general

family aspect of the permanent population; but Washington gathered its

people from the four winds of heaven, and so the manners, the faces and

the fashions there, presented a variety that was infinite. Washington

had never been in "society" in St. Louis, and he knew nothing of the ways

of its wealthier citizens and had never inspected one of their dwellings.

Consequently, everything in the nature of modern fashion and grandeur was

a new and wonderful revelation to him.

Washington is an interesting city to any of us. It seems to become more

and more interesting the oftener we visit it. Perhaps the reader has

never been there? Very well. You arrive either at night, rather too

late to do anything or see anything until morning, or you arrive so early

in the morning that you consider it best to go to your hotel and sleep an

hour or two while the sun bothers along over the Atlantic. You cannot

well arrive at a pleasant intermediate hour, because the railway

corporation that keeps the keys of the only door that leads into the town

or out of it take care of that. You arrive in tolerably good spirits,

because it is only thirty-eight miles from Baltimore to the capital, and

so you have only been insulted three times (provided you are not in a

sleeping car--the average is higher there): once when you renewed your

ticket after stopping over in Baltimore, once when you were about to

enter the "ladies' car" without knowing it was a lady's car, and once

When you asked the conductor at what hour you would reach Washington.

You are assailed by a long rank of hackmen who shake their whips in your

face as you step out upon the sidewalk; you enter what they regard as a

"carriage," in the capital, and you wonder why they do not take it out of

service and put it in the museum: we have few enough antiquities, and

it is little to our credit that we make scarcely any effort to preserve

the few we have. You reach your hotel, presently--and here let us draw

the curtain of charity--because of course you have gone to the wrong one.

You being a stranger, how could you do otherwise? There are a hundred

and eighteen bad hotels, and only one good one. The most renowned and

popular hotel of them all is perhaps the worst one known to history.

It is winter, and night. When you arrived, it was snowing. When you

reached the hotel, it was sleeting. When you went to bed, it was

raining. During the night it froze hard, and the wind blew some chimneys

down. When you got up in the morning, it was foggy. When you finished

your breakfast at ten o'clock and went out, the sunshine was brilliant,

the weather balmy and delicious, and the mud and slush deep and

all-pervading. You will like the climate when you get used to it.

You naturally wish to view the city; so you take an umbrella, an

overcoat, and a fan, and go forth. The prominent features you soon

locate and get familiar with; first you glimpse the ornamental upper

works of a long, snowy palace projecting above a grove of trees, and a

tall, graceful white dome with a statue on it surmounting the palace and

pleasantly contrasting with the background of blue sky. That building is

the capitol; gossips will tell you that by the original estimates it was

to cost $12,000,000, and that the government did come within $21,200,000

of building it for that sum.

You stand at the back of the capitol to treat yourself to a view, and it

is a very noble one. You understand, the capitol stands upon the verge

of a high piece of table land, a fine commanding position, and its front

looks out over this noble situation for a city--but it don't see it, for

the reason that when the capitol extension was decided upon, the property

owners at once advanced their prices to such inhuman figures that the

people went down and built the city in the muddy low marsh behind the

temple of liberty; so now the lordly front of the building, with, its

imposing colonades, its, projecting, graceful wings, its, picturesque

groups of statuary, and its long terraced ranges of steps, flowing down

in white marble waves to the ground, merely looks out upon a sorrowful

little desert of cheap boarding houses.

So you observe, that you take your view from the back of the capitol.

And yet not from the airy outlooks of the dome, by the way, because to

get there you must pass through the great rotunda: and to do that, you

would have to see the marvelous Historical Paintings that hang there,

and the bas-reliefs--and what have you done that you should suffer thus?

And besides, you might have to pass through the old part of the building,

and you could not help seeing Mr. Lincoln, as petrified by a young lady

artist for $10,000--and you might take his marble emancipation

proclamation, which he holds out in his hand and contemplates, for a

folded napkin; and you might conceive from his expression and his

attitude, that he is finding fault with the washing. Which is not the

case. Nobody knows what is the matter with him; but everybody feels for

him. Well, you ought not to go into the dome anyhow, because it would be

utterly impossible to go up there without seeing the frescoes in it--and

why should you be interested in the delirium tremens of art?

The capitol is a very noble and a very beautiful building, both within

and without, but you need not examine it now. Still, if you greatly

prefer going into the dome, go. Now your general glance gives you

picturesque stretches of gleaming water, on your left, with a sail here

and there and a lunatic asylum on shore; over beyond the water, on a

distant elevation, you see a squat yellow temple which your eye dwells

upon lovingly through a blur of unmanly moisture, for it recalls your

lost boyhood and the Parthenons done in molasses candy which made it

blest and beautiful. Still in the distance, but on this side of the

water and close to its edge, the Monument to the Father of his Country

towers out of the mud--sacred soil is the, customary term. It has the

aspect of a factory chimney with the top broken off. The skeleton of a

decaying scaffolding lingers about its summit, and tradition says that

the spirit of Washington often comes down and sits on those rafters to

enjoy this tribute of respect which the nation has reared as the symbol

of its unappeasable gratitude. The Monument is to be finished, some day,

and at that time our Washington will have risen still higher in the

nation's veneration, and will be known as the Great-Great-Grandfather of

his Country. The memorial Chimney stands in a quiet pastoral locality

that is full of reposeful expression. With a glass you can see the

cow-sheds about its base, and the contented sheep nimbling pebbles in the

desert solitudes that surround it, and the tired pigs dozing in the holy

calm of its protecting shadow.

Now you wrench your gaze loose, and you look down in front of you and see

the broad Pennsylvania Avenue stretching straight ahead for a mile or

more till it brings up against the iron fence in front of a pillared

granite pile, the Treasury building-an edifice that would command respect

in any capital. The stores and hotels that wall in this broad avenue are

mean, and cheap, and dingy, and are better left without comment. Beyond

the Treasury is a fine large white barn, with wide unhandsome grounds

about it. The President lives there. It is ugly enough outside, but

that is nothing to what it is inside. Dreariness, flimsiness, bad taste

reduced to mathematical completeness is what the inside offers to the

eye, if it remains yet what it always has been.

The front and right hand views give you the city at large. It is a wide

stretch of cheap little brick houses, with here and there a noble

architectural pile lifting itself out of the midst-government buildings,

these. If the thaw is still going on when you come down and go about

town, you will wonder at the short-sightedness of the city fathers, when

you come to inspect the streets, in that they do not dilute the mud a

little more and use them for canals.

If you inquire around a little, you will find that there are more

boardinghouses to the square acre in Washington than there are in any

other city in the land, perhaps. If you apply for a home in one of them,

it will seem odd to you to have the landlady inspect you with a severe

eye and then ask you if you are a member of Congress. Perhaps, just as a

pleasantry, you will say yes. And then she will tell you that she is

"full." Then you show her her advertisement in the morning paper, and

there she stands, convicted and ashamed. She will try to blush, and it

will be only polite in you to take the effort for the deed. She shows

you her rooms, now, and lets you take one--but she makes you pay in

advance for it. That is what you will get for pretending to be a member

of Congress. If you had been content to be merely a private citizen,

your trunk would have been sufficient security for your board. If you

are curious and inquire into this thing, the chances are that your

landlady will be ill-natured enough to say that the person and property

of a Congressman are exempt from arrest or detention, and that with the

tears in her eyes she has seen several of the people's representatives

walk off to their several States and Territories carrying her unreceipted

board bills in their pockets for keepsakes. And before you have been in

Washington many weeks you will be mean enough to believe her, too.

Of course you contrive to see everything and find out everything. And

one of the first and most startling things you find out is, that every

individual you encounter in the City of Washington almost--and certainly

every separate and distinct individual in the public employment, from the

highest bureau chief, clear down to the maid who scrubs Department halls,

the night watchmen of the public buildings and the darkey boy who

purifies the Department spittoons--represents Political Influence.

Unless you can get the ear of a Senator, or a Congressman, or a Chief of

a Bureau or Department, and persuade him to use his "influence" in your

behalf, you cannot get an employment of the most trivial nature in

Washington. Mere merit, fitness and capability, are useless baggage to

you without "influence." The population of Washington consists pretty

much entirely of government employee and the people who board them.

There are thousands of these employees, and they have gathered there from

every corner of the Union and got their berths through the intercession

(command is nearer the word) of the Senators and Representatives of their

respective States. It would be an odd circumstance to see a girl get

employment at three or four dollars a week in one of the great public

cribs without any political grandee to back her, but merely because she

was worthy, and competent, and a good citizen of a free country that

"treats all persons alike." Washington would be mildly thunderstruck at

such a thing as that. If you are a member of Congress, (no offence,) and

one of your constituents who doesn't know anything, and does not want to

go into the bother of learning something, and has no money, and no

employment, and can't earn a living, comes besieging you for help, do you

say, "Come, my friend, if your services were valuable you could get

employment elsewhere--don't want you here?" Oh, no: You take him to a

Department and say, "Here, give this person something to pass away the

time at--and a salary"--and the thing is done. You throw him on his

country. He is his country's child, let his country support him. There

is something good and motherly about Washington, the grand old benevolent

National Asylum for the Helpless.

The wages received by this great hive of employees are placed at the

liberal figure meet and just for skilled and competent labor. Such of

them as are immediately employed about the two Houses of Congress, are

not only liberally paid also, but are remembered in the customary Extra

Compensation bill which slides neatly through, annually, with the general

grab that signalizes the last night of a session, and thus twenty per

cent. is added to their wages, for--for fun, no doubt.

Washington Hawkins' new life was an unceasing delight to him. Senator

Dilworthy lived sumptuously, and Washington's quarters were charming

--gas; running water, hot and cold; bath-room, coal-fires, rich carpets,

beautiful pictures on the walls; books on religion, temperance, public

charities and financial schemes; trim colored servants, dainty food

--everything a body could wish for. And as for stationery, there was no

end to it; the government furnished it; postage stamps were not needed

--the Senator's frank could convey a horse through the mails, if necessary.

And then he saw such dazzling company. Renowned generals and admirals

who had seemed but colossal myths when he was in the far west, went in

and out before him or sat at the Senator's table, solidified into

palpable flesh and blood; famous statesmen crossed his path daily; that

once rare and awe-inspiring being, a Congressman, was become a common

spectacle--a spectacle so common, indeed, that he could contemplate it

without excitement, even without embarrassment; foreign ministers were

visible to the naked eye at happy intervals; he had looked upon the

President himself, and lived. And more; this world of enchantment teemed

with speculation--the whole atmosphere was thick with hand that indeed

was Washington Hawkins' native air; none other refreshed his lungs so

gratefully. He had found paradise at last.

The more he saw of his chief the Senator, the more he honored him, and

the more conspicuously the moral grandeur of his character appeared to

stand out. To possess the friendship and the kindly interest of such a

man, Washington said in a letter to Louise, was a happy fortune for a

young man whose career had been so impeded and so clouded as his.

The weeks drifted by;--Harry Brierly flirted, danced, added lustre

to the brilliant Senatorial receptions, and diligently "buzzed" and

"button-holed" Congressmen in the interest of the Columbus River scheme;

meantime Senator Dilworthy labored hard in the same interest--and in

others of equal national importance. Harry wrote frequently to Sellers,

and always encouragingly; and from these letters it was easy to see that

Harry was a pet with all Washington, and was likely to carry the thing

through; that the assistance rendered him by "old Dilworthy" was pretty

fair--pretty fair; "and every little helps, you know," said Harry.

Washington wrote Sellers officially, now and then. In one of his letters

it appeared that whereas no member of the House committee favored the

scheme at first, there was now needed but one more vote to compass a

majority report. Closing sentence:

"Providence seems to further our efforts."

(Signed,) "ABNER DILWORTHY, U. S. S.,

per WASHINGTON HAWKINS, P. S."

At the end of a week, Washington was able to send the happy news,

officially, as usual,--that the needed vote had been added and the bill

favorably reported from the Committee. Other letters recorded its perils

in Committee of the whole, and by and by its victory, by just the skin of

its teeth, on third reading and final passage. Then came letters telling

of Mr. Dilworthy's struggles with a stubborn majority in his own

Committee in the Senate; of how these gentlemen succumbed, one by one,

till a majority was secured.

Then there was a hiatus. Washington watched every move on the board, and

he was in a good position to do this, for he was clerk of this committee,

and also one other. He received no salary as private secretary, but

these two clerkships, procured by his benefactor, paid him an aggregate

of twelve dollars a day, without counting the twenty percent extra

compensation which would of course be voted to him on the last night of

the session.

He saw the bill go into Committee of the whole and struggle for its life

again, and finally worry through. In the fullness of time he noted its

second reading, and by and by the day arrived when the grand ordeal came,

and it was put upon its final passage. Washington listened with bated

breath to the "Aye!" "No!" "No!" "Aye!" of the voters, for a few dread

minutes, and then could bear the suspense no longer. He ran down from

the gallery and hurried home to wait.

At the end of two or three hours the Senator arrived in the bosom of his

family, and dinner was waiting. Washington sprang forward, with the

eager question on his lips, and the Senator said:

"We may rejoice freely, now, my son--Providence has crowned our efforts

with success."

CHAPTER XXV.

Washington sent grand good news to Col. Sellers that night. To Louise he

wrote:

"It is beautiful to hear him talk when his heart is full of thankfulness

for some manifestation of the Divine favor. You shall know him, some day

my Louise, and knowing him you will honor him, as I do."

Harry wrote:

"I pulled it through, Colonel, but it was a tough job, there is no

question about that. There was not a friend to the measure in the House

committee when I began, and not a friend in the Senate committee except

old Dil himself, but they were all fixed for a majority report when I

hauled off my forces. Everybody here says you can't get a thing like

this through Congress without buying committees for straight-out cash on

delivery, but I think I've taught them a thing or two--if I could only

make them believe it. When I tell the old residenters that this thing

went through without buying a vote or making a promise, they say, 'That's

rather too thin.' And when I say thin or not thin it's a fact, anyway,

they say, 'Come, now, but do you really believe that?' and when I say I

don't believe anything about it, I know it, they smile and say, 'Well,

you are pretty innocent, or pretty blind, one or the other--there's no

getting around that.' Why they really do believe that votes have been

bought--they do indeed. But let them keep on thinking so. I have found

out that if a man knows how to talk to women, and has a little gift in

the way of argument with men, he can afford to play for an appropriation

against a money bag and give the money bag odds in the game. We've raked

in $200,000 of Uncle Sam's money, say what they will--and there is more

where this came from, when we want it, and I rather fancy I am the person

that can go in and occupy it, too, if I do say it myself, that shouldn't,

perhaps. I'll be with you within a week. Scare up all the men you can,

and put them to work at once. When I get there I propose to make things

hum." The great news lifted Sellers into the clouds. He went to work on

the instant. He flew hither and thither making contracts, engaging men,

and steeping his soul in the ecstasies of business. He was the happiest

man in Missouri. And Louise was the happiest woman; for presently came a

letter from Washington which said:

"Rejoice with me, for the long agony is over! We have waited patiently

and faithfully, all these years, and now at last the reward is at hand.

A man is to pay our family $40,000 for the Tennessee Land! It is but a

little sum compared to what we could get by waiting, but I do so long to

see the day when I can call you my own, that I have said to myself,

better take this and enjoy life in a humble way than wear out our best

days in this miserable separation. Besides, I can put this money into

operations here that will increase it a hundred fold, yes, a thousand

fold, in a few months. The air is full of such chances, and I know our

family would consent in a moment that I should put in their shares with

mine. Without a doubt we shall be worth half a million dollars in a year

from this time--I put it at the very lowest figure, because it is always

best to be on the safe side--half a million at the very lowest

calculation, and then your father will give his consent and we can marry

at last. Oh, that will be a glorious day. Tell our friends the good

news--I want all to share it."

And she did tell her father and mother, but they said, let it be kept

still for the present. The careful father also told her to write

Washington and warn him not to speculate with the money, but to wait a

little and advise with one or two wise old heads. She did this. And she

managed to keep the good news to herself, though it would seem that the

most careless observer might have seen by her springing step and her

radiant countenance that some fine piece of good fortune had descended

upon her.

Harry joined the Colonel at Stone's Landing, and that dead place sprang

into sudden life. A swarm of men were hard at work, and the dull air was

filled with the cheery music of labor. Harry had been constituted

engineer-in-general, and he threw the full strength of his powers into

his work. He moved among his hirelings like a king. Authority seemed to

invest him with a new splendor. Col. Sellers, as general superintendent

of a great public enterprise, was all that a mere human being could be

--and more. These two grandees went at their imposing "improvement" with

the air of men who had been charged with the work of altering the

foundations of the globe.

They turned their first attention to straightening the river just above

the Landing, where it made a deep bend, and where the maps and plans

showed that the process of straightening would not only shorten distance

but increase the "fall." They started a cut-off canal across the

peninsula formed by the bend, and such another tearing up of the earth

and slopping around in the mud as followed the order to the men, had

never been seen in that region before. There was such a panic among the

turtles that at the end of six hours there was not one to be found within

three miles of Stone's Landing. They took the young and the aged, the

decrepit and the sick upon their backs and left for tide-water in

disorderly procession, the tadpoles following and the bull-frogs bringing

up the rear.

Saturday night came, but the men were obliged to wait, because the

appropriation had not come. Harry said he had written to hurry up the

money and it would be along presently. So the work continued, on Monday.

Stone's Landing was making quite a stir in the vicinity, by this time.

Sellers threw a lot or two on the market, "as a feeler," and they sold

well. He re-clothed his family, laid in a good stock of provisions, and

still had money left. He started a bank account, in a small way--and

mentioned the deposit casually to friends; and to strangers, too; to

everybody, in fact; but not as a new thing--on the contrary, as a matter

of life-long standing. He could not keep from buying trifles every day

that were not wholly necessary, it was such a gaudy thing to get out his

bank-book and draw a check, instead of using his old customary formula,

"Charge it" Harry sold a lot or two, also--and had a dinner party or two

at Hawkeye and a general good time with the money. Both men held on

pretty strenuously for the coming big prices, however.

At the end of a month things were looking bad. Harry had besieged the

New York headquarters of the Columbus River Slack-water Navigation

Company with demands, then commands, and finally appeals, but to no

purpose; the appropriation did not come; the letters were not even

answered. The workmen were clamorous, now. The Colonel and Harry

retired to consult.

"What's to be done?" said the Colonel.

"Hang'd if I know."

"Company say anything?"

"Not a word."

"You telegraphed yesterday?"

Yes, and the day before, too."

"No answer?"

"None-confound them!"

Then there was a long pause. Finally both spoke at once:

"I've got it!"

"I've got it!"

"What's yours?" said Harry.

"Give the boys thirty-day orders on the Company for the back pay."

"That's it-that's my own idea to a dot. But then--but then----"

"Yes, I know," said the Colonel; "I know they can't wait for the orders

to go to New York and be cashed, but what's the reason they can't get

them discounted in Hawkeye?"

"Of course they can. That solves the difficulty. Everybody knows the

appropriation's been made and the Company's perfectly good."

So the orders were given and the men appeased, though they grumbled a

little at first. The orders went well enough for groceries and such

things at a fair discount, and the work danced along gaily for a time.

Two or three purchasers put up frame houses at the Landing and moved in,

and of course a far-sighted but easy-going journeyman printer wandered

along and started the "Napoleon Weekly Telegraph and Literary

Repository"--a paper with a Latin motto from the Unabridged dictionary,

and plenty of "fat" conversational tales and double-leaded poetry--all

for two dollars a year, strictly in advance. Of course the merchants

forwarded the orders at once to New York--and never heard of them again.

At the end of some weeks Harry's orders were a drug in the market--nobody

would take them at any discount whatever. The second month closed with a

riot.--Sellers was absent at the time, and Harry began an active absence

himself with the mob at his heels. But being on horseback, he had the

advantage. He did not tarry in Hawkeye, but went on, thus missing

several appointments with creditors. He was far on his flight eastward,

and well out of danger when the next morning dawned. He telegraphed the

Colonel to go down and quiet the laborers--he was bound east for money

--everything would be right in a week--tell the men so--tell them to rely

on him and not be afraid.

Sellers found the mob quiet enough when he reached the Landing.

They had gutted the Navigation office, then piled the beautiful engraved

stock-books and things in the middle of the floor and enjoyed the bonfire

while it lasted. They had a liking for the Colonel, but still they had

some idea of hanging him, as a sort of make-shift that might answer,

after a fashion, in place of more satisfactory game.

But they made the mistake of waiting to hear what he had to say first.

Within fifteen minutes his tongue had done its work and they were all

rich men.--He gave every one of them a lot in the suburbs of the city of

Stone's Landing, within a mile and a half of the future post office and

railway station, and they promised to resume work as soon as Harry got

east and started the money along. Now things were blooming and pleasant

again, but the men had no money, and nothing to live on. The Colonel

divided with them the money he still had in bank--an act which had

nothing surprising about it because he was generally ready to divide

whatever he had with anybody that wanted it, and it was owing to this

very trait that his family spent their days in poverty and at times were

pinched with famine.

When the men's minds had cooled and Sellers was gone, they hated

themselves for letting him beguile them with fine speeches, but it was

too late, now--they agreed to hang him another time--such time as

Providence should appoint.

CHAPTER XXVI.

Rumors of Ruth's frivolity and worldliness at Fallkill traveled to

Philadelphia in due time, and occasioned no little undertalk among the

Bolton relatives.

Hannah Shoecraft told another, cousin that, for her part, she never

believed that Ruth had so much more "mind" than other people; and Cousin

Hulda added that she always thought Ruth was fond of admiration, and that

was the reason she was unwilling to wear plain clothes and attend

Meeting. The story that Ruth was "engaged" to a young gentleman of

fortune in Fallkill came with the other news, and helped to give point to

the little satirical remarks that went round about Ruth's desire to be a

doctor!

Margaret Bolton was too wise to be either surprised or alarmed by these

rumors. They might be true; she knew a woman's nature too well to think

them improbable, but she also knew how steadfast Ruth was in her

purposes, and that, as a brook breaks into ripples and eddies and dances

and sports by the way, and yet keeps on to the sea, it was in Ruth's

nature to give back cheerful answer to the solicitations of friendliness

and pleasure, to appear idly delaying even, and sporting in the sunshine,

while the current of her resolution flowed steadily on.

That Ruth had this delight in the mere surface play of life that she

could, for instance, be interested in that somewhat serious by-play

called "flirtation," or take any delight in the exercise of those little

arts of pleasing and winning which are none the less genuine and charming

because they are not intellectual, Ruth, herself, had never suspected

until she went to Fallkill. She had believed it her duty to subdue her

gaiety of temperament, and let nothing divert her from what are called

serious pursuits: In her limited experience she brought everything to the

judgment of her own conscience, and settled the affairs of all the world

in her own serene judgment hall. Perhaps her mother saw this, and saw

also that there was nothing in the Friends' society to prevent her from

growing more and more opinionated.

When Ruth returned to Philadelphia, it must be confessed--though it would

not have been by her--that a medical career did seem a little less

necessary for her than formerly; and coming back in a glow of triumph, as

it were, and in the consciousness of the freedom and life in a lively

society and in new and sympathetic friendship, she anticipated pleasure

in an attempt to break up the stiffness and levelness of the society at

home, and infusing into it something of the motion and sparkle which were

so agreeable at Fallkill. She expected visits from her new friends, she

would have company, the new books and the periodicals about which all the

world was talking, and, in short, she would have life.

For a little while she lived in this atmosphere which she had brought

with her. Her mother was delighted with this change in her, with the

improvement in her health and the interest she exhibited in home affairs.

Her father enjoyed the society of his favorite daughter as he did few

things besides; he liked her mirthful and teasing ways, and not less a

keen battle over something she had read. He had been a great reader all

his life, and a remarkable memory had stored his mind with encyclopaedic

information. It was one of Ruth's delights to cram herself with some out

of the way subject and endeavor to catch her father; but she almost

always failed. Mr. Bolton liked company, a house full of it, and the

mirth of young people, and he would have willingly entered into any

revolutionary plans Ruth might have suggested in relation to Friends'

society.

But custom and the fixed order are stronger than the most enthusiastic

and rebellious young lady, as Ruth very soon found. In spite of all her

brave efforts, her frequent correspondence, and her determined animation,

her books and her music, she found herself settling into the clutches of

the old monotony, and as she realized the hopelessness of her endeavors,

the medical scheme took new hold of her, and seemed to her the only

method of escape.

"Mother, thee does not know how different it is in Fallkill, how much

more interesting the people are one meets, how much more life there is."

"But thee will find the world, child, pretty much all the same, when thee

knows it better. I thought once as thee does now, and had as little

thought of being a Friend as thee has. Perhaps when thee has seen more,

thee will better appreciate a quiet life."

"Thee married young. I shall not marry young, and perhaps not at all,"

said Ruth, with a look of vast experience.

"Perhaps thee doesn't know thee own mind; I have known persons of thy

age who did not. Did thee see anybody whom thee would like to live with

always in Fallkill?"

"Not always," replied Ruth with a little laugh. "Mother, I think I

wouldn't say 'always' to any one until I have a profession and am as

independent as he is. Then my love would be a free act, and not in any

way a necessity."

Margaret Bolton smiled at this new-fangled philosophy. "Thee will find

that love, Ruth, is a thing thee won't reason about, when it comes, nor

make any bargains about. Thee wrote that Philip Sterling was at

Fallkill."

"Yes, and Henry Brierly, a friend of his; a very amusing young fellow and

not so serious-minded as Philip, but a bit of a fop maybe."

"And thee preferred the fop to the serious-minded?"

"I didn't prefer anybody; but Henry Brierly was good company, which

Philip wasn't always."

"Did thee know thee father had been in correspondence with Philip?"

Ruth looked up surprised and with a plain question in her eyes.

"Oh, it's not about thee."

"What then?" and if there was any shade of disappointment in her tone,

probably Ruth herself did not know it.

"It's about some land up in the country. That man Bigler has got father

into another speculation."

"That odious man! Why will father have anything to do with him? Is it

that railroad?"

"Yes. Father advanced money and took land as security, and whatever has

gone with the money and the bonds, he has on his hands a large tract of

wild land."

"And what has Philip to do with that?"

"It has good timber, if it could ever be got out, and father says that

there must be coal in it; it's in a coal region. He wants Philip to

survey it, and examine it for indications of coal."

"It's another of father's fortunes, I suppose," said Ruth. "He has put

away so many fortunes for us that I'm afraid we never shall find them."

Ruth was interested in it nevertheless, and perhaps mainly because Philip

was to be connected with the enterprise. Mr. Bigler came to dinner with

her father next day, and talked a great deal about Mr. Bolton's

magnificent tract of land, extolled the sagacity that led him to secure

such a property, and led the talk along to another railroad which would

open a northern communication to this very land.

"Pennybacker says it's full of coal, he's no doubt of it, and a railroad

to strike the Erie would make it a fortune."

"Suppose you take the land and work the thing up, Mr. Bigler; you may

have the tract for three dollars an acre."

"You'd throw it away, then," replied Mr. Bigler, "and I'm not the man to

take advantage of a friend. But if you'll put a mortgage on it for the

northern road, I wouldn't mind taking an interest, if Pennybacker is

willing; but Pennybacker, you know, don't go much on land, he sticks to

the legislature." And Mr. Bigler laughed.

When Mr. Bigler had gone, Ruth asked her father about Philip's connection

with the land scheme.

"There's nothing definite," said Mr. Bolton. "Philip is showing aptitude

for his profession. I hear the best reports of him in New York, though

those sharpers don't 'intend to do anything but use him. I've written

and offered him employment in surveying and examining the land. We want

to know what it is. And if there is anything in it that his enterprise

can dig out, he shall have an interest. I should be glad to give the

young fellow a lift."

All his life Eli Bolton had been giving young fellows a lift, and

shouldering the loses when things turned out unfortunately. His ledger,

take-it-altogether, would not show a balance on the right side; but

perhaps the losses on his books will turn out to be credits in a world

where accounts are kept on a different basis. The left hand of the

ledger will appear the right, looked at from the other side.

Philip, wrote to Ruth rather a comical account of the bursting up of the

city of Napoleon and the navigation improvement scheme, of Harry's flight

and the Colonel's discomfiture. Harry left in such a hurry that he

hadn't even time to bid Miss Laura Hawkins good-bye, but he had no doubt

that Harry would console himself with the next pretty face he saw

--a remark which was thrown in for Ruth's benefit. Col. Sellers had in all

probability, by this time, some other equally brilliant speculation in

his brain.

As to the railroad, Philip had made up his mind that it was merely kept

on foot for speculative purposes in Wall street, and he was about to quit

it. Would Ruth be glad to hear, he wondered, that he was coming East?

For he was coming, in spite of a letter from Harry in New York, advising

him to hold on until he had made some arrangements in regard to

contracts, he to be a little careful about Sellers, who was somewhat

visionary, Harry said.

The summer went on without much excitement for Ruth. She kept up a

correspondence with Alice, who promised a visit in the fall, she read,

she earnestly tried to interest herself in home affairs and such people

as came to the house; but she found herself falling more and more into

reveries, and growing weary of things as they were. She felt that

everybody might become in time like two relatives from a Shaker

establishment in Ohio, who visited the Boltons about this time, a father

and son, clad exactly alike, and alike in manners. The son; however,

who was not of age, was more unworldly and sanctimonious than his father;

he always addressed his parent as "Brother Plum," and bore himself,

altogether in such a superior manner that Ruth longed to put bent pins in

his chair. Both father and son wore the long, single breasted collarless

coats of their society, without buttons, before or behind, but with a row

of hooks and eyes on either side in front. It was Ruth's suggestion that

the coats would be improved by a single hook and eye sewed on in the

small of the back where the buttons usually are.

Amusing as this Shaker caricature of the Friends was, it oppressed Ruth

beyond measure; and increased her feeling of being stifled.

It was a most unreasonable feeling. No home could be pleasanter than

Ruth's. The house, a little out of the city; was one of those elegant

country residences which so much charm visitors to the suburbs of

Philadelphia. A modern dwelling and luxurious in everything that wealth

could suggest for comfort, it stood in the midst of exquisitely kept

lawns, with groups of trees, parterres of flowers massed in colors, with

greenhouse, grapery and garden; and on one side, the garden sloped away

in undulations to a shallow brook that ran over a pebbly bottom and sang

under forest trees. The country about teas the perfection of cultivated

landscape, dotted with cottages, and stately mansions of Revolutionary

date, and sweet as an English country-side, whether seen in the soft

bloom of May or in the mellow ripeness of late October.

It needed only the peace of the mind within, to make it a paradise.

One riding by on the Old Germantown road, and seeing a young girl

swinging in the hammock on the piazza and, intent upon some volume of old

poetry or the latest novel, would no doubt have envied a life so idyllic.

He could not have imagined that the young girl was reading a volume of

reports of clinics and longing to be elsewhere.

Ruth could not have been more discontented if all the wealth about her

had been as unsubstantial as a dream. Perhaps she so thought it.

"I feel," she once said to her father, "as if I were living in a house of

cards."

"And thee would like to turn it into a hospital?"

"No. But tell me father," continued Ruth, not to be put off, "is thee

still going on with that Bigler and those other men who come here and

entice thee?"

Mr. Bolton smiled, as men do when they talk with women about "business"

"Such men have their uses, Ruth. They keep the world active, and I owe a

great many of my best operations to such men. Who knows, Ruth, but this

new land purchase, which I confess I yielded a little too much to Bigler

in, may not turn out a fortune for thee and the rest of the children?"

"Ah, father, thee sees every thing in a rose-colored light. I do believe

thee wouldn't have so readily allowed me to begin the study of medicine,

if it hadn't had the novelty of an experiment to thee."

"And is thee satisfied with it?"

"If thee means, if I have had enough of it, no. I just begin to see what

I can do in it, and what a noble profession it is for a woman. Would

thee have me sit here like a bird on a bough and wait for somebody to

come and put me in a cage?"

Mr. Bolton was not sorry to divert the talk from his own affairs, and he

did not think it worth while to tell his family of a performance that

very day which was entirely characteristic of him.

Ruth might well say that she felt as if she were living in a house of

cards, although the Bolton household had no idea of the number of perils

that hovered over them, any more than thousands of families in America

have of the business risks and contingences upon which their prosperity

and luxury hang.

A sudden call upon Mr. Bolton for a large sum of money, which must be

forthcoming at once, had found him in the midst of a dozen ventures, from

no one of which a dollar could be realized. It was in vain that he

applied to his business acquaintances and friends; it was a period of

sudden panic and no money. "A hundred thousand! Mr. Bolton," said

Plumly. "Good God, if you should ask me for ten, I shouldn't know where

to get it."

And yet that day Mr. Small (Pennybacker, Bigler and Small) came to Mr.

Bolton with a piteous story of ruin in a coal operation, if he could not

raise ten thousand dollars. Only ten, and he was sure of a fortune.

Without it he was a beggar. Mr. Bolton had already Small's notes for a

large amount in his safe, labeled "doubtful;" he had helped him again and

again, and always with the same result. But Mr. Small spoke with a

faltering voice of his family, his daughter in school, his wife ignorant

of his calamity, and drew such a picture of their agony, that Mr. Bolton

put by his own more pressing necessity, and devoted the day to scraping

together, here and there, ten thousand dollars for this brazen beggar,

who had never kept a promise to him nor paid a debt.

Beautiful credit! The foundation of modern society. Who shall say that

this is not the golden age of mutual trust, of unlimited reliance upon

human promises? That is a peculiar condition of society which enables a

whole nation to instantly recognize point and meaning in the familiar

newspaper anecdote, which puts into the mouth of a distinguished

speculator in lands and mines this remark:--"I wasn't worth a cent two

years ago, and now I owe two millions of dollars."

CHAPTER XXVII.

It was a hard blow to poor Sellers to see the work on his darling

enterprise stop, and the noise and bustle and confusion that had been

such refreshment to his soul, sicken and die out. It was hard to come

down to humdrum ordinary life again after being a General Superintendent

and the most conspicuous man in the community. It was sad to see his

name disappear from the newspapers; sadder still to see it resurrected at

intervals, shorn of its aforetime gaudy gear of compliments and clothed

on with rhetorical tar and feathers.

But his friends suffered more on his account than he did. He was a cork

that could not be kept under the water many moments at a time.

He had to bolster up his wife's spirits every now and then. On one of

these occasions he said:

"It's all right, my dear, all right; it will all come right in a little

while. There's $200,000 coming, and that will set things booming again:

Harry seems to be having some difficulty, but that's to be expected--you

can't move these big operations to the tune of Fisher's Hornpipe, you

know. But Harry will get it started along presently, and then you'll

see! I expect the news every day now."

"But Beriah, you've been expecting it every day, all along, haven't you?"

"Well, yes; yes--I don't know but I have. But anyway, the longer it's

delayed, the nearer it grows to the time when it will start--same as

every day you live brings you nearer to--nearer--"

"The grave?"

"Well, no--not that exactly; but you can't understand these things, Polly

dear--women haven't much head for business, you know. You make yourself

perfectly comfortable, old lady, and you'll see how we'll trot this right

along. Why bless you, let the appropriation lag, if it wants to--that's

no great matter--there's a bigger thing than that."

"Bigger than $200,000, Beriah?"

"Bigger, child?--why, what's $200,000? Pocket money! Mere pocket money!

Look at the railroad! Did you forget the railroad? It ain't many months

till spring; it will be coming right along, and the railroad swimming

right along behind it. Where'll it be by the middle of summer? Just

stop and fancy a moment--just think a little--don't anything suggest

itself? Bless your heart, you dear women live right in the present all

the time--but a man, why a man lives----

"In the future, Beriah? But don't we live in the future most too much,

Beriah? We do somehow seem to manage to live on next year's crop of corn

and potatoes as a general thing while this year is still dragging along,

but sometimes it's not a robust diet,--Beriah. But don't look that way,

dear--don't mind what I say. I don't mean to fret, I don't mean to

worry; and I don't, once a month, do I, dear? But when I get a little

low and feel bad, I get a bit troubled and worrisome, but it don't mean

anything in the world. It passes right away. I know you're doing all

you can, and I don't want to seem repining and ungrateful--for I'm not,

Beriah--you know I'm not, don't you?"

"Lord bless you, child, I know you are the very best little woman that

ever lived--that ever lived on the whole face of the Earth! And I know

that I would be a dog not to work for you and think for you and scheme

for you with all my might. And I'll bring things all right yet, honey

--cheer up and don't you fear. The railroad----"

"Oh, I had forgotten the railroad, dear, but when a body gets blue, a

body forgets everything. Yes, the railroad--tell me about the railroad."

"Aha, my girl, don't you see? Things ain't so dark, are they? Now I

didn't forget the railroad. Now just think for a moment--just figure up

a little on the future dead moral certainties. For instance, call this

waiter St. Louis.

"And we'll lay this fork (representing the railroad) from St. Louis to

this potato, which is Slouchburg:

"Then with this carving knife we'll continue the railroad from Slouchburg

to Doodleville, shown by the black pepper:

"Then we run along the--yes--the comb--to the tumbler that's Brimstone:

"Thence by the pipe to Belshazzar, which is the salt-cellar:

"Thence to, to--that quill--Catfish--hand me the pincushion, Marie

Antoinette:

"Thence right along these shears to this horse, Babylon:

"Then by the spoon to Bloody Run--thank you, the ink:

"Thence to Hail Columbia--snuffers, Polly, please move that cup and

saucer close up, that's Hail Columbia:

"Then--let me open my knife--to Hark-from-the-Tomb, where we'll put

the candle-stick--only a little distance from Hail Columbia to

Hark-from-the-Tomb--down-grade all the way.

"And there we strike Columbus River--pass me two or throe skeins of

thread to stand for the river; the sugar bowl will do for Hawkeye, and

the rat trap for Stone's Landing-Napoleon, I mean--and you can see how

much better Napoleon is located than Hawkeye. Now here you are with your

railroad complete, and showing its continuation to Hallelujah and thence

to Corruptionville.

"Now then-them you are! It's a beautiful road, beautiful. Jeff Thompson

can out-engineer any civil engineer that ever sighted through an aneroid,

or a theodolite, or whatever they call it--he calls it sometimes one and

sometimes the other just whichever levels off his sentence neatest, I

reckon. But ain't it a ripping toad, though? I tell you, it'll make a

stir when it gets along. Just see what a country it goes through.

There's your onions at Slouchburg--noblest onion country that graces

God's footstool; and there's your turnip country all around Doodleville

--bless my life, what fortunes are going to be made there when they get

that contrivance perfected for extracting olive oil out of turnips--if

there's any in them; and I reckon there is, because Congress has made an

appropriation of money to test the thing, and they wouldn't have done

that just on conjecture, of course. And now we come to the Brimstone

region--cattle raised there till you can't rest--and corn, and all that

sort of thing. Then you've got a little stretch along through Belshazzar

that don't produce anything now--at least nothing but rocks--but

irrigation will fetch it. Then from Catfish to Babylon it's a little

swampy, but there's dead loads of peat down under there somewhere. Next

is the Bloody Run and Hail Columbia country--tobacco enough can be raised

there to support two such railroads. Next is the sassparilla region.

I reckon there's enough of that truck along in there on the line of the

pocket-knife, from Hail Columbia to Hark-from-the Tomb to fat up all the

consumptives in all the hospitals from Halifax to the Holy Land. It just

grows like weeds! I've got a little belt of sassparilla land in there

just tucked away unobstrusively waiting for my little Universal

Expectorant to get into shape in my head. And I'll fix that, you know.

One of these days I'll have all the nations of the earth expecto--"

"But Beriah, dear--"

"Don't interrupt me; Polly--I don't want you to lose the run of the map

--well, take your toy-horse, James Fitz-James, if you must have it--and run

along with you. Here, now--the soap will do for Babylon. Let me see

--where was I? Oh yes--now we run down to Stone's Lan--Napoleon--now we

run down to Napoleon. Beautiful road. Look at that, now. Perfectly

straight line-straight as the way to the grave. And see where it leaves

Hawkeye-clear out in the cold, my dear, clear out in the cold. That

town's as bound to die as--well if I owned it I'd get its obituary ready,

now, and notify the mourners. Polly, mark my words--in three years from

this, Hawkeye'll be a howling wilderness. You'll see. And just look at

that river--noblest stream that meanders over the thirsty earth!

--calmest, gentlest artery that refreshes her weary bosom! Railroad

goes all over it and all through it--wades right along on stilts.

Seventeen bridges in three miles and a half--forty-nine bridges from

Hark-from-the-Tomb to Stone's Landing altogether--forty nine bridges, and

culverts enough to culvert creation itself! Hadn't skeins of thread

enough to represent them all--but you get an idea--perfect trestle-work

of bridges for seventy two miles: Jeff Thompson and I fixed all that, you

know; he's to get the contracts and I'm to put them through on the

divide. Just oceans of money in those bridges. It's the only part of

the railroad I'm interested in,--down along the line--and it's all I

want, too. It's enough, I should judge. Now here we are at Napoleon.

Good enough country plenty good enough--all it wants is population.

That's all right--that will come. And it's no bad country now for

calmness and solitude, I can tell you--though there's no money in that,

of course. No money, but a man wants rest, a man wants peace--a man

don't want to rip and tear around all the time. And here we go, now,

just as straight as a string for Hallelujah--it's a beautiful angle

--handsome up grade all the way --and then away you go to Corruptionville,

the gaudiest country for early carrots and cauliflowers that ever--good

missionary field, too. There ain't such another missionary field outside

the jungles of Central Africa. And patriotic?--why they named it after

Congress itself. Oh, I warn you, my dear, there's a good time coming,

and it'll be right along before you know what you're about, too. That

railroad's fetching it. You see what it is as far as I've got, and if I

had enough bottles and soap and boot-jacks and such things to carry it

along to where it joins onto the Union Pacific, fourteen hundred miles

from here, I should exhibit to you in that little internal improvement a

spectacle of inconceivable sublimity. So, don't you see? We've got the

rail road to fall back on; and in the meantime, what are we worrying

about that $200,000 appropriation for? That's all right. I'd be willing

to bet anything that the very next letter that comes from Harry will--"

The eldest boy entered just in the nick of time and brought a letter,

warm from the post-office.

"Things do look bright, after all, Beriah. I'm sorry I was blue, but it

did seem as if everything had been going against us for whole ages. Open

the letter--open it quick, and let's know all about it before we stir out

of our places. I am all in a fidget to know what it says."

The letter was opened, without any unnecessary delay.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

Whatever may have been the language of Harry's letter to the Colonel,

the information it conveyed was condensed or expanded, one or the other,

from the following episode of his visit to New York:

He called, with official importance in his mien, at No.-- Wall street,

where a great gilt sign betokened the presence of the head-quarters of

the "Columbus River Slack-Water Navigation Company." He entered and

gave a dressy porter his card, and was requested to wait a moment in a

sort of ante-room. The porter returned in a minute; and asked whom he

would like to see?

"The president of the company, of course."

"He is busy with some gentlemen, sir; says he will be done with them

directly."

That a copper-plate card with "Engineer-in-Chief" on it should be

received with such tranquility as this, annoyed Mr. Brierly not a little.

But he had to submit. Indeed his annoyance had time to augment a good

deal; for he was allowed to cool his heels a frill half hour in the

ante-room before those gentlemen emerged and he was ushered into the

presence. He found a stately dignitary occupying a very official chair

behind a long green morocco-covered table, in a room with sumptuously

carpeted and furnished, and well garnished with pictures.

"Good morning, sir; take a seat--take a seat."

"Thank you sir," said Harry, throwing as much chill into his manner as

his ruffled dignity prompted.

"We perceive by your reports and the reports of the Chief Superintendent,

that you have been making gratifying progress with the work.--We are all

very much pleased."

"Indeed? We did not discover it from your letters--which we have not

received; nor by the treatment our drafts have met with--which were not

honored; nor by the reception of any part of the appropriation, no part

of it having come to hand."

"Why, my dear Mr. Brierly, there must be some mistake, I am sure we wrote

you and also Mr. Sellers, recently--when my clerk comes he will show

copies--letters informing you of the ten per cent. assessment."

"Oh, certainly, we got those letters. But what we wanted was money to

carry on the work--money to pay the men."

"Certainly, certainly--true enough--but we credited you both for a large

part of your assessments--I am sure that was in our letters."

"Of course that was in--I remember that."

"Ah, very well then. Now we begin to understand each other."

"Well, I don't see that we do. There's two months' wages due the men,

and----"

"How? Haven't you paid the men?"

"Paid them! How are we going to pay them when you don't honor our

drafts?"

"Why, my dear sir, I cannot see how you can find any fault with us. I am

sure we have acted in a perfectly straight forward business way.--Now let

us look at the thing a moment. You subscribed for 100 shares of the

capital stock, at $1,000 a share, I believe?"

"Yes, sir, I did."

"And Mr. Sellers took a like amount?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very well. No concern can get along without money. We levied a ten per

cent. assessment. It was the original understanding that you and Mr.

Sellers were to have the positions you now hold, with salaries of $600 a

month each, while in active service. You were duly elected to these

places, and you accepted them. Am I right?"

"Certainly."

"Very well. You were given your instructions and put to work. By your

reports it appears that you have expended the sum of $9,610 upon the said

work. Two months salary to you two officers amounts altogether to

$2,400--about one-eighth of your ten per cent. assessment, you see; which

leaves you in debt to the company for the other seven-eighths of the

assessment--viz, something over $8,000 apiece. Now instead of requiring

you to forward this aggregate of $16,000 or $17,000 to New York, the

company voted unanimously to let you pay it over to the contractors,

laborers from time to time, and give you credit on the books for it.

And they did it without a murmur, too, for they were pleased with the

progress you had made, and were glad to pay you that little compliment

--and a very neat one it was, too, I am sure. The work you did fell short

of $10,000, a trifle. Let me see--$9,640 from $20,000 salary $2;400

added--ah yes, the balance due the company from yourself and Mr. Sellers

is $7,960, which I will take the responsibility of allowing to stand for

the present, unless you prefer to draw a check now, and thus----"

"Confound it, do you mean to say that instead of the company owing us

$2,400, we owe the company $7,960?"

"Well, yes."

"And that we owe the men and the contractors nearly ten thousand dollars

besides?"

"Owe them! Oh bless my soul, you can't mean that you have not paid these

people?"

"But I do mean it!"

The president rose and walked the floor like a man in bodily pain. His

brows contracted, he put his hand up and clasped his forehead, and kept

saying, "Oh, it is, too bad, too bad, too bad! Oh, it is bound to be

found out--nothing can prevent it--nothing!"

Then he threw himself into his chair and said:

"My dear Mr. Brierson, this is dreadful--perfectly dreadful. It will be

found out. It is bound to tarnish the good name of the company; our

credit will be seriously, most seriously impaired. How could you be so

thoughtless--the men ought to have been paid though it beggared us all!"

"They ought, ought they? Then why the devil--my name is not Bryerson, by

the way--why the mischief didn't the compa--why what in the nation ever

became of the appropriation? Where is that appropriation?--if a

stockholder may make so bold as to ask."

The appropriation?--that paltry $200,000, do you mean?"

"Of course--but I didn't know that $200,000 was so very paltry. Though I

grant, of course, that it is not a large sum, strictly speaking. But

where is it?"

"My dear sir, you surprise me. You surely cannot have had a large

acquaintance with this sort of thing. Otherwise you would not have

expected much of a result from a mere INITIAL appropriation like that.

It was never intended for anything but a mere nest egg for the future and

real appropriations to cluster around."

"Indeed? Well, was it a myth, or was it a reality? Whatever become of

it?"

"Why the--matter is simple enough. A Congressional appropriation costs

money. Just reflect, for instance--a majority of the House Committee,

say $10,000 apiece--$40,000; a majority of the Senate Committee, the same

each--say $40,000; a little extra to one or two chairman of one or two

such committees, say $10,000 each--$20,000; and there's $100,000 of the

money gone, to begin with. Then, seven male lobbyists, at $3,000 each

--$21,000; one female lobbyist, $10,000; a high moral Congressman or

Senator here and there--the high moral ones cost more, because they.

give tone to a measure--say ten of these at $3,000 each, is $30,000; then

a lot of small-fry country members who won't vote for anything whatever

without pay--say twenty at $500 apiece, is $10,000; a lot of dinners to

members--say $10,000 altogether; lot of jimcracks for Congressmen's wives

and children--those go a long way--you can't sped too much money in that

line--well, those things cost in a lump, say $10,000--along there

somewhere; and then comes your printed documents--your maps, your tinted

engravings, your pamphlets, your illuminated show cards, your

advertisements in a hundred and fifty papers at ever so much a line

--because you've got to keep the papers all light or you are gone up, you

know. Oh, my dear sir, printing bills are destruction itself. Ours so

far amount to--let me see--10; 52; 22; 13;--and then there's 11; 14; 33

--well, never mind the details, the total in clean numbers foots up

$118,254.42 thus far!"

"What!"

"Oh, yes indeed. Printing's no bagatelle, I can tell you. And then

there's your contributions, as a company, to Chicago fires and Boston

fires, and orphan asylums and all that sort of thing--head the list, you

see, with the company's full name and a thousand dollars set opposite

--great card, sir--one of the finest advertisements in the world--the

preachers mention it in the pulpit when it's a religious charity--one of

the happiest advertisements in the world is your benevolent donation.

Ours have amounted to sixteen thousand dollars and some cents up to this

time."

"Good heavens!"

"Oh, yes. Perhaps the biggest thing we've done in the advertising line

was to get an officer of the U. S. government, of perfectly Himmalayan

official altitude, to write up our little internal improvement for a

religious paper of enormous circulation--I tell you that makes our bonds

go handsomely among the pious poor. Your religious paper is by far the

best vehicle for a thing of this kind, because they'll 'lead' your

article and put it right in the midst of the reading matter; and if it's

got a few Scripture quotations in it, and some temperance platitudes and

a bit of gush here and there about Sunday Schools, and a sentimental

snuffle now and then about 'God's precious ones, the honest hard-handed

poor,' it works the nation like a charm, my dear sir, and never a man

suspects that it is an advertisement; but your secular paper sticks you

right into the advertising columns and of course you don't take a trick.

Give me a religious paper to advertise in, every time; and if you'll just

look at their advertising pages, you'll observe that other people think a

good deal as I do--especially people who have got little financial

schemes to make everybody rich with. Of course I mean your great big

metropolitan religious papers that know how to serve God and make money

at the same time--that's your sort, sir, that's your sort--a religious

paper that isn't run to make money is no use to us, sir, as an

advertising medium--no use to anybody--in our line of business. I guess

our next best dodge was sending a pleasure trip of newspaper reporters

out to Napoleon. Never paid them a cent; just filled them up with

champagne and the fat of the land, put pen, ink and paper before them

while they were red-hot, and bless your soul when you come to read their

letters you'd have supposed they'd been to heaven. And if a sentimental

squeamishness held one or two of them back from taking a less rosy view

of Napoleon, our hospitalities tied his tongue, at least, and he said

nothing at all and so did us no harm. Let me see--have I stated all the

expenses I've been at? No, I was near forgetting one or two items.

There's your official salaries--you can't get good men for nothing.

Salaries cost pretty lively. And then there's your big high-sounding

millionaire names stuck into your advertisements as stockholders--another

card, that--and they are stockholders, too, but you have to give them the

stock and non-assessable at that--so they're an expensive lot. Very,

very expensive thing, take it all around, is a big internal improvement

concern--but you see that yourself, Mr. Bryerman--you see that, yourself,

sir."

"But look here. I think you are a little mistaken about it's ever having

cost anything for Congressional votes. I happen to know something about

that. I've let you say your say--now let me say mine. I don't wish to

seem to throw any suspicion on anybody's statements, because we are all

liable to be mistaken. But how would it strike you if I were to say that

I was in Washington all the time this bill was pending? and what if I

added that I put the measure through myself? Yes, sir, I did that little

thing. And moreover, I never paid a dollar for any man's vote and never

promised one. There are some ways of doing a thing that are as good as

others which other people don't happen to think about, or don't have the

knack of succeeding in, if they do happen to think of them. My dear sir,

I am obliged to knock some of your expenses in the head--for never a cent

was paid a Congressman or Senator on the part of this Navigation Company."

The president smiled blandly, even sweetly, all through this harangue,

and then said:

"Is that so?"

"Every word of it."

"Well it does seem to alter the complexion of things a little. You are

acquainted with the members down there, of course, else you could not

have worked to such advantage?"

"I know them all, sir. I know their wives, their children, their babies

--I even made it a point to be on good terms with their lackeys. I know

every Congressman well--even familiarly."

"Very good. Do you know any of their signatures? Do you know their

handwriting?"

"Why I know their handwriting as well as I know my own--have had

correspondence enough with them, I should think. And their signatures

--why I can tell their initials, even."

The president went to a private safe, unlocked it and got out some

letters and certain slips of paper. Then he said:

"Now here, for instance; do you believe that that is a genuine letter?

Do you know this signature here?--and this one? Do you know who those

initials represent--and are they forgeries?"

Harry was stupefied. There were things there that made his brain swim.

Presently, at the bottom of one of the letters he saw a signature that

restored his equilibrium; it even brought the sunshine of a smile to his

face.

The president said:

"That one amuses you. You never suspected him?"

"Of course I ought to have suspected him, but I don't believe it ever

really occurred to me. Well, well, well--how did you ever have the nerve

to approach him, of all others?"

"Why my friend, we never think of accomplishing anything without his

help. He is our mainstay. But how do those letters strike you?"

"They strike me dumb! What a stone-blind idiot I have been!"

"Well, take it all around, I suppose you had a pleasant time in

Washington," said the president, gathering up the letters; "of course you

must have had. Very few men could go there and get a money bill through

without buying a single"

"Come, now, Mr. President, that's plenty of that! I take back everything

I said on that head. I'm a wiser man to-day than I was yesterday, I can

tell you."

"I think you are. In fact I am satisfied you are. But now I showed you

these things in confidence, you understand. Mention facts as much as you

want to, but don't mention names to anybody. I can depend on you for

that, can't I?"

"Oh, of course. I understand the necessity of that. I will not betray

the names. But to go back a bit, it begins to look as if you never saw

any of that appropriation at all?"

"We saw nearly ten thousand dollars of it--and that was all. Several of

us took turns at log-rolling in Washington, and if we had charged

anything for that service, none of that $10,000 would ever have reached

New York."

"If you hadn't levied the assessment you would have been in a close place

I judge?"

"Close? Have you figured up the total of the disbursements I told you

of?"

"No, I didn't think of that."

"Well, lets see:

Spent in Washington, say, ........... $191,000

Printing, advertising, etc., say .... $118,000

Charity, say, ....................... $16,000

Total, ............... $325,000

The money to do that with, comes from

--Appropriation, ...................... $200,000

Ten per cent. assessment on capital of

$1,000,000 ..................... $100,000

Total, ............... $300,000

"Which leaves us in debt some $25,000 at this moment. Salaries of home

officers are still going on; also printing and advertising. Next month

will show a state of things!"

"And then--burst up, I suppose?"

"By no means. Levy another assessment"

"Oh, I see. That's dismal."

"By no means."

"Why isn't it? What's the road out?"

"Another appropriation, don't you see?"

"Bother the appropriations. They cost more than they come to."

"Not the next one. We'll call for half a million--get it and go for a

million the very next month."--"Yes, but the cost of it!"

The president smiled, and patted his secret letters affectionately. He

said:

"All these people are in the next Congress. We shan't have to pay them a

cent. And what is more, they will work like beavers for us--perhaps it

might be to their advantage."

Harry reflected profoundly a while. Then he said:

"We send many missionaries to lift up the benighted races of other lands.

How much cheaper and better it would be if those people could only come

here and drink of our civilization at its fountain head."

"I perfectly agree with you, Mr. Beverly. Must you go? Well, good

morning. Look in, when you are passing; and whenever I can give you any

information about our affairs and pro'spects, I shall be glad to do it."

Harry's letter was not a long one, but it contained at least the

calamitous figures that came out in the above conversation. The Colonel

found himself in a rather uncomfortable place--no $1,200 salary

forthcoming; and himself held responsible for half of the $9,640 due the

workmen, to say nothing of being in debt to the company to the extent of

nearly $4,000. Polly's heart was nearly broken; the "blues" returned in

fearful force, and she had to go out of the room to hide the tears that

nothing could keep back now.

There was mourning in another quarter, too, for Louise had a letter.

Washington had refused, at the last moment, to take $40,000 for the

Tennessee Land, and had demanded $150,000! So the trade fell through,

and now Washington was wailing because he had been so foolish. But he

wrote that his man might probably return to the city soon, and then he

meant to sell to him, sure, even if he had to take $10,000. Louise had a

good cry-several of them, indeed--and the family charitably forebore to

make any comments that would increase her grief.

Spring blossomed, summer came, dragged its hot weeks by, and the

Colonel's spirits rose, day by day, for the railroad was making good

progress. But by and by something happened. Hawkeye had always declined

to subscribe anything toward the railway, imagining that her large

business would be a sufficient compulsory influence; but now Hawkeye was

frightened; and before Col. Sellers knew what he was about, Hawkeye, in a

panic, had rushed to the front and subscribed such a sum that Napoleon's

attractions suddenly sank into insignificance and the railroad concluded

to follow a comparatively straight coarse instead of going miles out of

its way to build up a metropolis in the muddy desert of Stone's Landing.

The thunderbolt fell. After all the Colonel's deep planning; after all

his brain work and tongue work in drawing public attention to his pet

project and enlisting interest in it; after all his faithful hard toil

with his hands, and running hither and thither on his busy feet; after

all his high hopes and splendid prophecies, the fates had turned their

backs on him at last, and all in a moment his air-castles crumbled to

ruins abort him. Hawkeye rose from her fright triumphant and rejoicing,

and down went Stone's Landing! One by one its meagre parcel of

inhabitants packed up and moved away, as the summer waned and fall

approached. Town lots were no longer salable, traffic ceased, a deadly

lethargy fell upon the place once more, the "Weekly Telegraph" faded into

an early grave, the wary tadpole returned from exile, the bullfrog

resumed his ancient song, the tranquil turtle sunned his back upon bank

and log and drowsed his grateful life away as in the old sweet days of

yore.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Philip Sterling was on his way to Ilium, in the state of Pennsylvania.

Ilium was the railway station nearest to the tract of wild land which

Mr. Bolton had commissioned him to examine.

On the last day of the journey as the railway train Philip was on was

leaving a large city, a lady timidly entered the drawing-room car, and

hesitatingly took a chair that was at the moment unoccupied. Philip saw

from the window that a gentleman had put her upon the car just as it was

starting. In a few moments the conductor entered, and without waiting an

explanation, said roughly to the lady,

"Now you can't sit there. That seat's taken. Go into the other car."

"I did not intend to take the seat," said the lady rising, "I only sat

down a moment till the conductor should come and give me a seat."

"There aint any. Car's full. You'll have to leave."

"But, sir," said the lady, appealingly, "I thought--"

"Can't help what you thought--you must go into the other car."

"The train is going very fast, let me stand here till we stop."

"The lady can have my seat," cried Philip, springing up.

The conductor turned towards Philip, and coolly and deliberately surveyed

him from head to foot, with contempt in every line of his face, turned

his back upon him without a word, and said to the lady,

"Come, I've got no time to talk. You must go now."

The lady, entirely disconcerted by such rudeness, and frightened, moved

towards the door, opened it and stepped out. The train was swinging

along at a rapid rate, jarring from side to side; the step was a long one

between the cars and there was no protecting grating. The lady attempted

it, but lost her balance, in the wind and the motion of the car, and

fell! She would inevitably have gone down under the wheels, if Philip,

who had swiftly followed her, had not caught her arm and drawn her up.

He then assisted her across, found her a seat, received her bewildered

thanks, and returned to his car.

The conductor was still there, taking his tickets, and growling something

about imposition. Philip marched up to him, and burst out with,

"You are a brute, an infernal brute, to treat a woman that way."

"Perhaps you'd like to make a fuss about it," sneered the conductor.

Philip's reply was a blow, given so suddenly and planted so squarely in

the conductor's face, that it sent him reeling over a fat passenger, who

was looking up in mild wonder that any one should dare to dispute with a

conductor, and against the side of the car.

He recovered himself, reached the bell rope, "Damn you, I'll learn you,"

stepped to the door and called a couple of brakemen, and then, as the

speed slackened; roared out,

"Get off this train."

"I shall not get off. I have as much right here as you."

"We'll see," said the conductor, advancing with the brakemen. The

passengers protested, and some of them said to each other, "That's too

bad," as they always do in such cases, but none of them offered to take a

hand with Philip. The men seized him, wrenched him from his seat,

dragged him along the aisle, tearing his clothes, thrust him from the

car, and, then flung his carpet-bag, overcoat and umbrella after him.

And the train went on.

The conductor, red in the face and puffing from his exertion, swaggered

through the car, muttering "Puppy, I'll learn him." The passengers, when

he had gone, were loud in their indignation, and talked about signing a

protest, but they did nothing more than talk.

The next morning the Hooverville Patriot and Clarion had this "item":--

SLIGHTUALLY OVERBOARD.

"We learn that as the down noon express was leaving H---- yesterday

a lady! (God save the mark) attempted to force herself into the

already full palatial car. Conductor Slum, who is too old a bird to

be caught with chaff, courteously informed her that the car was

full, and when she insisted on remaining, he persuaded her to go

into the car where she belonged. Thereupon a young sprig, from the

East, blustered like a Shanghai rooster, and began to sass the

conductor with his chin music. That gentleman delivered the young

aspirant for a muss one of his elegant little left-handers, which so

astonished him that he began to feel for his shooter. Whereupon Mr.

Slum gently raised the youth, carried him forth, and set him down

just outside the car to cool off. Whether the young blood has yet

made his way out of Bascom's swamp, we have not learned. Conductor

Slum is one of the most gentlemanly and efficient officers on the

road; but he ain't trifled with, not much. We learn that the

company have put a new engine on the seven o'clock train, and newly

upholstered the drawing-room car throughout. It spares no effort

for the comfort of the traveling public."

Philip never had been before in Bascom's swamp, and there was nothing

inviting in it to detain him. After the train got out of the way he

crawled out of the briars and the mud, and got upon the track. He was

somewhat bruised, but he was too angry to mind that. He plodded along

over the ties in a very hot condition of mind and body. In the scuffle,

his railway check had disappeared, and he grimly wondered, as he noticed

the loss, if the company would permit him to walk over their track if

they should know he hadn't a ticket.

Philip had to walk some five miles before he reached a little station,

where he could wait for a train, and he had ample time for reflection.

At first he was full of vengeance on the company. He would sue it. He

would make it pay roundly. But then it occurred to him that he did not

know the name of a witness he could summon, and that a personal fight

against a railway corporation was about the most hopeless in the world.

He then thought he would seek out that conductor, lie in wait for him at

some station, and thrash him, or get thrashed himself.

But as he got cooler, that did not seem to him a project worthy of a

gentleman exactly. Was it possible for a gentleman to get even with such

a fellow as that conductor on the letter's own plane? And when he came

to this point, he began to ask himself, if he had not acted very much

like a fool. He didn't regret striking the fellow--he hoped he had left

a mark on him. But, after all, was that the best way? Here was he,

Philip Sterling, calling himself a gentleman, in a brawl with a vulgar

conductor, about a woman he had never seen before. Why should he have

put himself in such a ridiculous position? Wasn't it enough to have

offered the lady his seat, to have rescued her from an accident, perhaps

from death? Suppose he had simply said to the conductor, "Sir, your

conduct is brutal, I shall report you." The passengers, who saw the

affair, might have joined in a report against the conductor, and he might

really have accomplished something. And, now! Philip looked at leis

torn clothes, and thought with disgust of his haste in getting into a

fight with such an autocrat.

At the little station where Philip waited for the next train, he met a

man--who turned out to be a justice of the peace in that neighborhood,

and told him his adventure. He was a kindly sort of man, and seemed very

much interested.

"Dum 'em," said he, when he had heard the story.

"Do you think any thing can be done, sir?"

"Wal, I guess tain't no use. I hain't a mite of doubt of every word you

say. But suin's no use. The railroad company owns all these people

along here, and the judges on the bench too. Spiled your clothes! Wal,

'least said's soonest mended.' You haint no chance with the company."

When next morning, he read the humorous account in the Patriot and

Clarion, he saw still more clearly what chance he would have had before

the public in a fight with the railroad company.

Still Philip's conscience told him that it was his plain duty to carry

the matter into the courts, even with the certainty of defeat.

He confessed that neither he nor any citizen had a right to consult his

own feelings or conscience in a case where a law of the land had been

violated before his own eyes. He confessed that every citizen's first

duty in such case is to put aside his own business and devote his time

and his best efforts to seeing that the infraction is promptly punished;

and he knew that no country can be well governed unless its citizens as

a body keep religiously before their minds that they are the guardians

of the law, and that the law officers are only the machinery for its

execution, nothing more. As a finality he was obliged to confess that he

was a bad citizen, and also that the general laxity of the time, and the

absence of a sense of duty toward any part of the community but the

individual himself were ingrained in him, am he was no better than the

rest of the people.

The result of this little adventure was that Philip did not reach Ilium

till daylight the next morning, when he descended sleepy and sore, from a

way train, and looked about him. Ilium was in a narrow mountain gorge,

through which a rapid stream ran. It consisted of the plank platform on

which he stood, a wooden house, half painted, with a dirty piazza

(unroofed) in front, and a sign board hung on a slanting pole--bearing

the legend, "Hotel. P. Dusenheimer," a sawmill further down the stream,

a blacksmith-shop, and a store, and three or four unpainted dwellings of

the slab variety.

As Philip approached the hotel he saw what appeared to be a wild beast

crouching on the piazza. It did not stir, however, and he soon found

that it was only a stuffed skin. This cheerful invitation to the tavern

was the remains of a huge panther which had been killed in the region a

few weeks before. Philip examined his ugly visage and strong crooked

fore-arm, as he was waiting admittance, having pounded upon the door.

"Yait a bit. I'll shoost--put on my trowsers," shouted a voice from the

window, and the door was soon opened by the yawning landlord.

"Morgen! Didn't hear d' drain oncet. Dem boys geeps me up zo spate.

Gom right in."

Philip was shown into a dirty bar-room. It was a small room, with a

stove in the middle, set in a long shallow box of sand, for the benefit

of the "spitters," a bar across one end--a mere counter with a sliding

glass-case behind it containing a few bottles having ambitious labels,

and a wash-sink in one corner. On the walls were the bright yellow and

black handbills of a traveling circus, with pictures of acrobats in human

pyramids, horses flying in long leaps through the air, and sylph-like

women in a paradisaic costume, balancing themselves upon the tips of

their toes on the bare backs of frantic and plunging steeds, and kissing

their hands to the spectators meanwhile.

As Philip did not desire a room at that hour, he was invited to wash

himself at the nasty sink, a feat somewhat easier than drying his face,

for the towel that hung in a roller over the sink was evidently as much a

fixture as the sink itself, and belonged, like the suspended brush and

comb, to the traveling public. Philip managed to complete his toilet by

the use of his pocket-handkerchief, and declining the hospitality of the

landlord, implied in the remark, "You won'd dake notin'?" he went into

the open air to wait for breakfast.

The country he saw was wild but not picturesque. The mountain before him

might be eight hundred feet high, and was only a portion of a long

unbroken range, savagely wooded, which followed the stream. Behind the

hotel, and across the brawling brook, was another level-topped, wooded

range exactly like it. Ilium itself, seen at a glance, was old enough to

be dilapidated, and if it had gained anything by being made a wood and

water station of the new railroad, it was only a new sort of grime and

rawness. P. Dusenheimer, standing in the door of his uninviting

groggery, when the trains stopped for water; never received from the

traveling public any patronage except facetious remarks upon his personal

appearance. Perhaps a thousand times he had heard the remark, "Ilium

fuit," followed in most instances by a hail to himself as "AEneas," with

the inquiry "Where is old Anchises?" At first he had replied, "Dere

ain't no such man;" but irritated by its senseless repetition, he had

latterly dropped into the formula of, "You be dam."

Philip was recalled from the contemplation of Ilium by the rolling and

growling of the gong within the hotel, the din and clamor increasing till

the house was apparently unable to contain it; when it burst out of the

front door and informed the world that breakfast was on the table.

The dining room was long, low and narrow, and a narrow table extended its

whole length. Upon this was spread a cloth which from appearance might

have been as long in use as the towel in the barroom. Upon the table was

the usual service, the heavy, much nicked stone ware, the row of plated

and rusty castors, the sugar bowls with the zinc tea-spoons sticking up

in them, the piles of yellow biscuits, the discouraged-looking plates of

butter. The landlord waited, and Philip was pleased to observe the

change in his manner. In the barroom he was the conciliatory landlord.

Standing behind his guests at table, he had an air of peremptory

patronage, and the voice in which he shot out the inquiry, as he seized

Philip's plate, "Beefsteak or liver?" quite took away Philip's power of

choice. He begged for a glass of milk, after trying that green hued

compound called coffee, and made his breakfast out of that and some hard

crackers which seemed to have been imported into Ilium before the

introduction of the iron horse, and to have withstood a ten years siege

of regular boarders, Greeks and others.

The land that Philip had come to look at was at least five miles distant

from Ilium station. A corner of it touched the railroad, but the rest

was pretty much an unbroken wilderness, eight or ten thousand acres of

rough country, most of it such a mountain range as he saw at Ilium.

His first step was to hire three woodsmen to accompany him. By their

help he built a log hut, and established a camp on the land, and then

began his explorations, mapping down his survey as he went along, noting

the timber, and the lay of the land, and making superficial observations

as to the prospect of coal.

The landlord at Ilium endeavored to persuade Philip to hire the services

of a witch-hazel professor of that region, who could walk over the land

with his wand and tell him infallibly whether it contained coal, and

exactly where the strata ran. But Philip preferred to trust to his own

study of the country, and his knowledge of the geological formation.

He spent a month in traveling over the land and making calculations;

and made up his mind that a fine vein of coal ran through the mountain

about a mile from the railroad, and that the place to run in a tunnel was

half way towards its summit.

Acting with his usual promptness, Philip, with the consent of Mr. Bolton,

broke ground there at once, and, before snow came, had some rude

buildings up, and was ready for active operations in the spring. It was

true that there were no outcroppings of coal at the place, and the people

at Ilium said he "mought as well dig for plug terbaccer there;" but

Philip had great faith in the uniformity of nature's operations in ages

past, and he had no doubt that he should strike at this spot the rich

vein that had made the fortune of the Golden Briar Company.

CHAPTER XXX.

Once more Louise had good news from her Washington--Senator Dilworthy was

going to sell the Tennessee Land to the government! Louise told Laura in

confidence. She had told her parents, too, and also several bosom

friends; but all of these people had simply looked sad when they heard

the news, except Laura. Laura's face suddenly brightened under it--only

for an instant, it is true, but poor Louise was grateful for even that

fleeting ray of encouragement. When next Laura was alone, she fell into

a train of thought something like this:

"If the Senator has really taken hold of this matter, I may look for that

invitation to his house at, any moment. I am perishing to go! I do long

to know whether I am only simply a large-sized pigmy among these pigmies

here, who tumble over so easily when one strikes them, or whether I am

really--." Her thoughts drifted into other channels, for a season.

Then she continued:-- "He said I could be useful in the great cause of

philanthropy, and help in the blessed work of uplifting the poor and the

ignorant, if he found it feasible to take hold of our Land. Well, that

is neither here nor there; what I want, is to go to Washington and find

out what I am. I want money, too; and if one may judge by what she

hears, there are chances there for a--." For a fascinating woman, she

was going to say, perhaps, but she did not.

Along in the fall the invitation came, sure enough. It came officially

through brother Washington, the private Secretary, who appended a

postscript that was brimming with delight over the prospect of seeing the

Duchess again. He said it would be happiness enough to look upon her

face once more--it would be almost too much happiness when to it was

added the fact that she would bring messages with her that were fresh

from Louise's lips.

In Washington's letter were several important enclosures. For instance,

there was the Senator's check for $2,000--"to buy suitable clothing in

New York with!" It was a loan to be refunded when the Land was sold.

Two thousand--this was fine indeed. Louise's father was called rich, but

Laura doubted if Louise had ever had $400 worth of new clothing at one

time in her life. With the check came two through tickets--good on the

railroad from Hawkeye to Washington via New York--and they were

"dead-head" tickets, too, which had been given to Senator Dilworthy by

the railway companies. Senators and representatives were paid thousands

of dollars by the government for traveling expenses, but they always

traveled "deadhead" both ways, and then did as any honorable, high-minded

men would naturally do--declined to receive the mileage tendered them by

the government. The Senator had plenty of railway passes, and could.

easily spare two to Laura--one for herself and one for a male escort.

Washington suggested that she get some old friend of the family to come

with her, and said the Senator would "deadhead" him home again as soon as

he had grown tired, of the sights of the capital. Laura thought the

thing over. At first she was pleased with the idea, but presently she

began to feel differently about it. Finally she said, "No, our staid,

steady-going Hawkeye friends' notions and mine differ about some things

--they respect me, now, and I respect them--better leave it so--I will go

alone; I am not afraid to travel by myself." And so communing with

herself, she left the house for an afternoon walk.

Almost at the door she met Col. Sellers. She told him about her

invitation to Washington.

"Bless me!" said the Colonel. "I have about made up my mind to go there

myself. You see we've got to get another appropriation through, and the

Company want me to come east and put it through Congress. Harry's there,

and he'll do what he can, of course; and Harry's a good fellow and always

does the very best he knows how, but then he's young--rather young for

some parts of such work, you know--and besides he talks too much, talks a

good deal too much; and sometimes he appears to be a little bit

visionary, too, I think the worst thing in the world for a business man.

A man like that always exposes his cards, sooner or later. This sort of

thing wants an old, quiet, steady hand--wants an old cool head, you know,

that knows men, through and through, and is used to large operations.

I'm expecting my salary, and also some dividends from the company, and if

they get along in time, I'll go along with you Laura--take you under my

wing--you mustn't travel alone. Lord I wish I had the money right now.

--But there'll be plenty soon--plenty."

Laura reasoned with herself that if the kindly, simple-hearted Colonel

was going anyhow, what could she gain by traveling alone and throwing

away his company? So she told him she accepted his offer gladly,

gratefully. She said it would be the greatest of favors if he would go

with her and protect her--not at his own expense as far as railway fares

were concerned, of course; she could not expect him to put himself to so

much trouble for her and pay his fare besides. But he wouldn't hear of

her paying his fare--it would be only a pleasure to him to serve her.

Laura insisted on furnishing the tickets; and finally, when argument

failed, she said the tickets cost neither her nor any one else a cent

--she had two of them--she needed but one--and if he would not take the

other she would not go with him. That settled the matter. He took the

ticket. Laura was glad that she had the check for new clothing, for she

felt very certain of being able to get the Colonel to borrow a little of

the money to pay hotel bills with, here and there.

She wrote Washington to look for her and Col. Sellers toward the end of

November; and at about the time set the two travelers arrived safe in the

capital of the nation, sure enough.

CHAPTER XXXI

She the, gracious lady, yet no paines did spare

To doe him ease, or doe him remedy:

Many restoratives of vertues rare

And costly cordialles she did apply,

To mitigate his stubborne malady.

Spenser's Faerie Queens.

Mr. Henry Brierly was exceedingly busy in New York, so he wrote Col.

Sellers, but he would drop everything and go to Washington.

The Colonel believed that Harry was the prince of lobbyists, a little too

sanguine, may be, and given to speculation, but, then, he knew everybody;

the Columbus River navigation scheme was, got through almost entirely by

his aid. He was needed now to help through another scheme, a benevolent

scheme in which Col. Sellers, through the Hawkinses, had a deep interest.

"I don't care, you know," he wrote to Harry, "so much about the niggroes.

But if the government will buy this land, it will set up the Hawkins

family--make Laura an heiress--and I shouldn't wonder if Beriah Sellers

would set up his carriage again. Dilworthy looks at it different,

of course. He's all for philanthropy, for benefiting the colored race.

There's old Balsam, was in the Interior--used to be the Rev. Orson Balsam

of Iowa--he's made the riffle on the Injun; great Injun pacificator and

land dealer. Balaam'a got the Injun to himself, and I suppose that

Senator Dilworthy feels that there is nothing left him but the colored

man. I do reckon he is the best friend the colored man has got in

Washington."

Though Harry was in a hurry to reach Washington, he stopped in

Philadelphia; and prolonged his visit day after day, greatly to the

detriment of his business both in New York and Washington. The society

at the Bolton's might have been a valid excuse for neglecting business

much more important than his. Philip was there; he was a partner with

Mr. Bolton now in the new coal venture, concerning which there was much

to be arranged in preparation for the Spring work, and Philip lingered

week after week in the hospitable house. Alice was making a winter

visit. Ruth only went to town twice a week to attend lectures, and the

household was quite to Mr. Bolton's taste, for he liked the cheer of

company and something going on evenings. Harry was cordially asked to

bring his traveling-bag there, and he did not need urging to do so.

Not even the thought of seeing Laura at the capital made him restless in

the society of the two young ladies; two birds in hand are worth one in

the bush certainly.

Philip was at home--he sometimes wished he were not so much so. He felt

that too much or not enough was taken for granted. Ruth had met him,

when he first came, with a cordial frankness, and her manner continued

entirely unrestrained. She neither sought his company nor avoided it,

and this perfectly level treatment irritated him more than any other

could have done. It was impossible to advance much in love-making with

one who offered no obstacles, had no concealments and no embarrassments,

and whom any approach to sentimentality would be quite likely to set into

a fit of laughter.

"Why, Phil," she would say, "what puts you in the dumps to day? You are

as solemn as the upper bench in Meeting. I shall have to call Alice to

raise your spirits; my presence seems to depress you."

"It's not your presence, but your absence when you are present," began

Philip, dolefully, with the idea that he was saying a rather deep thing.

"But you won't understand me."

"No, I confess I cannot. If you really are so low, as to think I am

absent when I am present, it's a frightful case of aberration; I shall

ask father to bring out Dr. Jackson. Does Alice appear to be present

when she is absent?"

"Alice has some human feeling, anyway. She cares for something besides

musty books and dry bones. I think, Ruth, when I die," said Philip,

intending to be very grim and sarcastic, "I'll leave you my skeleton.

You might like that."

"It might be more cheerful than you are at times," Ruth replied with a

laugh. "But you mustn't do it without consulting Alice. She might not.

like it."

"I don't know why you should bring Alice up on every occasion. Do you

think I am in love with her?"

"Bless you, no. It never entered my head. Are you? The thought of

Philip Sterling in love is too comical. I thought you were only in love

with the Ilium coal mine, which you and father talk about half the time."

This is a specimen of Philip's wooing. Confound the girl, he would say

to himself, why does she never tease Harry and that young Shepley who

comes here?

How differently Alice treated him. She at least never mocked him, and it

was a relief to talk with one who had some sympathy with him. And he did

talk to her, by the hour, about Ruth. The blundering fellow poured all

his doubts and anxieties into her ear, as if she had been the impassive

occupant of one of those little wooden confessionals in the Cathedral on

Logan Square. Has, a confessor, if she is young and pretty, any feeling?

Does it mend the matter by calling her your sister?

Philip called Alice his good sister, and talked to her about love and

marriage, meaning Ruth, as if sisters could by no possibility have any

personal concern in such things. Did Ruth ever speak of him? Did she

think Ruth cared for him? Did Ruth care for anybody at Fallkill? Did

she care for anything except her profession? And so on.

Alice was loyal to Ruth, and if she knew anything she did not betray her

friend. She did not, at any rate, give Philip too much encouragement.

What woman, under the circumstances, would?

"I can tell you one thing, Philip," she said, "if ever Ruth Bolton loves,

it will be with her whole soul, in a depth of passion that will sweep

everything before it and surprise even herself."

A remark that did not much console Philip, who imagined that only some

grand heroism could unlock the sweetness of such a heart; and Philip

feared that he wasn't a hero. He did not know out of what materials a

woman can construct a hero, when she is in the creative mood.

Harry skipped into this society with his usual lightness and gaiety.

His good nature was inexhaustible, and though he liked to relate his own

exploits, he had a little tact in adapting himself to the tastes of his

hearers. He was not long in finding out that Alice liked to hear about

Philip, and Harry launched out into the career of his friend in the West,

with a prodigality of invention that would have astonished the chief

actor. He was the most generous fellow in the world, and picturesque

conversation was the one thing in which he never was bankrupt. With Mr.

Bolton he was the serious man of business, enjoying the confidence of

many of the monied men in New York, whom Mr. Bolton knew, and engaged

with them in railway schemes and government contracts. Philip, who had

so long known Harry, never could make up his mind that Harry did not

himself believe that he was a chief actor in all these large operations

of which he talked so much.

Harry did not neglect to endeavor to make himself agreeable to Mrs.

Bolton, by paying great attention to the children, and by professing the

warmest interest in the Friends' faith. It always seemed to him the most

peaceful religion; he thought it must be much easier to live by an

internal light than by a lot of outward rules; he had a dear Quaker aunt

in Providence of whom Mrs. Bolton constantly reminded him. He insisted

upon going with Mrs. Bolton and the children to the Friends Meeting on

First Day, when Ruth and Alice and Philip, "world's people," went to a

church in town, and he sat through the hour of silence with his hat on,

in most exemplary patience. In short, this amazing actor succeeded so

well with Mrs. Bolton, that she said to Philip one day,

"Thy friend, Henry Brierly, appears to be a very worldly minded young

man. Does he believe in anything?"

"Oh, yes," said Philip laughing, "he believes in more things than any

other person I ever saw."

To Ruth, Harry seemed to be very congenial. He was never moody for one

thing, but lent himself with alacrity to whatever her fancy was. He was

gay or grave as the need might be. No one apparently could enter more

fully into her plans for an independent career.

"My father," said Harry, "was bred a physician, and practiced a little

before he went into Wall street. I always had a leaning to the study.

There was a skeleton hanging in the closet of my father's study when I

was a boy, that I used to dress up in old clothes. Oh, I got quite

familiar with the human frame."

"You must have," said Philip. "Was that where you learned to play the

bones? He is a master of those musical instruments, Ruth; he plays well

enough to go on the stage."

"Philip hates science of any kind, and steady application," retorted

Harry. He didn't fancy Philip's banter, and when the latter had gone

out, and Ruth asked,

"Why don't you take up medicine, Mr. Brierly?"

Harry said, "I have it in mind. I believe I would begin attending

lectures this winter if it weren't for being wanted in Washington. But

medicine is particularly women's province."

"Why so?" asked Ruth, rather amused.

"Well, the treatment of disease is a good deal a matter of sympathy.

A woman's intuition is better than a man's. Nobody knows anything,

really, you know, and a woman can guess a good deal nearer than a man."

"You are very complimentary to my sex."

"But," said Harry frankly; "I should want to choose my doctor; an ugly

woman would ruin me, the disease would be sure to strike in and kill me

at sight of her. I think a pretty physician, with engaging manners,

would coax a fellow to live through almost anything."

"I am afraid you are a scoffer, Mr. Brierly."

"On the contrary, I am quite sincere. Wasn't it old what's his name?

that said only the beautiful is useful?"

Whether Ruth was anything more than diverted with Harry's company; Philip

could not determine. He scorned at any rate to advance his own interest

by any disparaging communications about Harry, both because he could not

help liking the fellow himself, and because he may have known that he

could not more surely create a sympathy for him in Ruth's mind. That

Ruth was in no danger of any serious impression he felt pretty sure,

felt certain of it when he reflected upon her severe occupation with her

profession. Hang it, he would say to himself, she is nothing but pure

intellect anyway. And he only felt uncertain of it when she was in one

of her moods of raillery, with mocking mischief in her eyes. At such

times she seemed to prefer Harry's society to his. When Philip was

miserable about this, he always took refuge with Alice, who was never

moody, and who generally laughed him out of his sentimental nonsense.

He felt at his ease with Alice, and was never in want of something to

talk about; and he could not account for the fact that he was so often

dull with Ruth, with whom, of all persons in the world, he wanted to

appear at his best.

Harry was entirely satisfied with his own situation. A bird of passage

is always at its ease, having no house to build, and no responsibility.

He talked freely with Philip about Ruth, an almighty fine girl, he said,

but what the deuce she wanted to study medicine for, he couldn't see.

There was a concert one night at the Musical Fund Hall and the four had

arranged to go in and return by the Germantown cars. It was Philip's

plan, who had engaged the seats, and promised himself an evening with

Ruth, walking with her, sitting by her in the hall, and enjoying the

feeling of protecting that a man always has of a woman in a public place.

He was fond of music, too, in a sympathetic way; at least, he knew that

Ruth's delight in it would be enough for him.

Perhaps he meant to take advantage of the occasion to say some very

serious things. His love for Ruth was no secret to Mrs. Bolton, and he

felt almost sure that he should have no opposition in the family. Mrs.

Bolton had been cautious in what she said, but Philip inferred everything

from her reply to his own questions, one day, "Has thee ever spoken thy

mind to Ruth?"

Why shouldn't he speak his mind, and end his doubts? Ruth had been more

tricksy than usual that day, and in a flow of spirits quite inconsistent,

it would seem, in a young lady devoted to grave studies.

Had Ruth a premonition of Philip's intention, in his manner? It may be,

for when the girls came down stairs, ready to walk to the cars; and met

Philip and Harry in the hall, Ruth said, laughing,

"The two tallest must walk together" and before Philip knew how it

happened Ruth had taken Harry's arm, and his evening was spoiled. He had

too much politeness and good sense and kindness to show in his manner

that he was hit. So he said to Harry,

"That's your disadvantage in being short." And he gave Alice no reason

to feel during the evening that she would not have been his first choice

for the excursion. But he was none the less chagrined, and not a little

angry at the turn the affair took.

The Hall was crowded with the fashion of the town. The concert was one

of those fragmentary drearinesses that people endure because they are

fashionable; tours de force on the piano, and fragments from operas,

which have no meaning without the setting, with weary pauses of waiting

between; there is the comic basso who is so amusing and on such familiar

terms with the audience, and always sings the Barber; the attitudinizing

tenor, with his languishing "Oh, Summer Night;" the soprano with her

"Batti Batti," who warbles and trills and runs and fetches her breath,

and ends with a noble scream that brings down a tempest of applause in

the midst of which she backs off the stage smiling and bowing. It was

this sort of concert, and Philip was thinking that it was the most stupid

one he ever sat through, when just as the soprano was in the midst of

that touching ballad, "Comin' thro' the Rye" (the soprano always sings

"Comin' thro' the Rye" on an encore)--the Black Swan used to make it

irresistible, Philip remembered, with her arch, "If a body kiss a body"

there was a cry of "Fire!"

The hall is long and narrow, and there is only one place of egress.

Instantly the audience was on its feet, and a rush began for the door.

Men shouted, women screamed, and panic seized the swaying mass.

A second's thought would have convinced every one that getting out was

impossible, and that the only effect of a rush would be to crash people

to death. But a second's thought was not given. A few cried:

"Sit down, sit down," but the mass was turned towards the door. Women

were down and trampled on in the aisles, and stout men, utterly lost to

self-control, were mounting the benches, as if to run a race over the

mass to the entrance.

Philip who had forced the girls to keep their seats saw, in a flash, the

new danger, and sprang to avert it. In a second more those infuriated

men would be over the benches and crushing Ruth and Alice under their

boots. He leaped upon the bench in front of them and struck out before

him with all his might, felling one man who was rushing on him, and

checking for an instant the movement, or rather parting it, and causing

it to flow on either side of him. But it was only for an instant; the

pressure behind was too great, and, the next Philip was dashed backwards

over the seat.

And yet that instant of arrest had probably saved the girls, for as

Philip fell, the orchestra struck up "Yankee Doodle" in the liveliest

manner. The familiar tune caught the ear of the mass, which paused in

wonder, and gave the conductor's voice a chance to be heard--"It's a

false alarm!"

The tumult was over in a minute, and the next, laughter was heard, and

not a few said, "I knew it wasn't anything." "What fools people are at

such a time."

The concert was over, however. A good many people were hurt, some of

them seriously, and among them Philip Sterling was found bent across the

seat, insensible, with his left arm hanging limp and a bleeding wound on

his head.

When he was carried into the air he revived, and said it was nothing.

A surgeon was called, and it was thought best to drive at once to the

Bolton's, the surgeon supporting Philip, who did not speak the whole way.

His arm was set and his head dressed, and the surgeon said he would come

round all right in his mind by morning; he was very weak. Alice who was

not much frightened while the panic lasted in the hall, was very much

unnerved by seeing Philip so pale and bloody. Ruth assisted the surgeon

with the utmost coolness and with skillful hands helped to dress Philip's

wounds. And there was a certain intentness and fierce energy in what she

did that might have revealed something to Philip if he had been in his

senses.

But he was not, or he would not have murmured "Let Alice do it, she is

not too tall."

It was Ruth's first case.

CHAPTER, XXXII.

Washington's delight in his beautiful sister was measureless. He said

that she had always been the queenliest creature in the land, but that

she was only commonplace before, compared to what she was now, so

extraordinary was the improvement wrought by rich fashionable attire.

"But your criticisms are too full of brotherly partiality to be depended

on, Washington. Other people will judge differently."

"Indeed they won't. You'll see. There will never be a woman in

Washington that can compare with you. You'll be famous within a

fortnight, Laura. Everybody will want to know you. You wait--you'll

see."

Laura wished in her heart that the prophecy might come true; and

privately she even believed it might--for she had brought all the women

whom she had seen since she left home under sharp inspection, and the

result had not been unsatisfactory to her.

During a week or two Washington drove about the city every day with her

and familiarized her with all of its salient features. She was beginning

to feel very much at home with the town itself, and she was also fast

acquiring ease with the distinguished people she met at the Dilworthy

table, and losing what little of country timidity she had brought with

her from Hawkeye. She noticed with secret pleasure the little start of

admiration that always manifested itself in the faces of the guests when

she entered the drawing-room arrayed in evening costume: she took

comforting note of the fact that these guests directed a very liberal

share of their conversation toward her; she observed with surprise, that

famous statesmen and soldiers did not talk like gods, as a general thing,

but said rather commonplace things for the most part; and she was filled

with gratification to discover that she, on the contrary, was making a

good many shrewd speeches and now and then a really brilliant one, and

furthermore, that they were beginning to be repeated in social circles

about the town.

Congress began its sittings, and every day or two Washington escorted her

to the galleries set apart for lady members of the households of Senators

and Representatives. Here was a larger field and a wider competition,

but still she saw that many eyes were uplifted toward her face, and that

first one person and then another called a neighbor's attention to her;

she was not too dull to perceive that the speeches of some of the younger

statesmen were delivered about as much and perhaps more at her than to

the presiding officer; and she was not sorry to see that the dapper young

Senator from Iowa came at once and stood in the open space before the

president's desk to exhibit his feet as soon as she entered the gallery,

whereas she had early learned from common report that his usual custom

was to prop them on his desk and enjoy them himself with a selfish

disregard of other people's longings.

Invitations began to flow in upon her and soon she was fairly "in

society." "The season" was now in full bloom, and the first select

reception was at hand that is to say, a reception confined to invited

guests. Senator Dilworthy had become well convinced; by this time, that

his judgment of the country-bred Missouri girl had not deceived him--it

was plain that she was going to be a peerless missionary in the field of

labor he designed her for, and therefore it would be perfectly safe and

likewise judicious to send her forth well panoplied for her work.--So he

had added new and still richer costumes to her wardrobe, and assisted

their attractions with costly jewelry-loans on the future land sale.

This first select reception took place at a cabinet minister's--or rather

a cabinet secretary's mansion. When Laura and the Senator arrived, about

half past nine or ten in the evening, the place was already pretty well

crowded, and the white-gloved negro servant at the door was still

receiving streams of guests.--The drawing-rooms were brilliant with

gaslight, and as hot as ovens. The host and hostess stood just within

the door of entrance; Laura was presented, and then she passed on into

the maelstrom of be-jeweled and richly attired low-necked ladies and

white-kid-gloved and steel pen-coated gentlemen and wherever she moved

she was followed by a buzz of admiration that was grateful to all her

senses--so grateful, indeed, that her white face was tinged and its

beauty heightened by a perceptible suffusion of color. She caught such

remarks as, "Who is she?" "Superb woman!" "That is the new beauty from

the west," etc., etc.

Whenever she halted, she was presently surrounded by Ministers, Generals,

Congressmen, and all manner of aristocratic, people. Introductions

followed, and then the usual original question, "How do you like

Washington, Miss Hawkins?" supplemented by that other usual original

question, "Is this your first visit?"

These two exciting topics being exhausted, conversation generally drifted

into calmer channels, only to be interrupted at frequent intervals by new

introductions and new inquiries as to how Laura liked the capital and

whether it was her first visit or not. And thus for an hour or more the

Duchess moved through the crush in a rapture of happiness, for her doubts

were dead and gone, now she knew she could conquer here. A familiar face

appeared in the midst of the multitude and Harry Brierly fought his

difficult way to her side, his eyes shouting their gratification, so to

speak:

"Oh, this is a happiness! Tell me, my dear Miss Hawkins--"

"Sh! I know what you are going to ask. I do like Washington--I like it

ever so much!"

"No, but I was going to ask--"

"Yes, I am coming to it, coming to it as fast as I can. It is my first

visit. I think you should know that yourself."

And straightway a wave of the crowd swept her beyond his reach.

"Now what can the girl mean? Of course she likes Washington--I'm not

such a dummy as to have to ask her that. And as to its being her first

visit, why bang it, she knows that I knew it was. Does she think I have

turned idiot? Curious girl, anyway. But how they do swarm about her!

She is the reigning belle of Washington after this night. She'll know

five hundred of the heaviest guns in the town before this night's

nonsense is over. And this isn't even the beginning. Just as I used to

say--she'll be a card in the matter of--yes sir! She shall turn the

men's heads and I'll turn the women's! What a team that will be in

politics here. I wouldn't take a quarter of a million for what I can do

in this present session--no indeed I wouldn't. Now, here--I don't

altogether like this. That insignificant secretary of legation is--why,

she's smiling on him as if he--and now on the Admiral! Now she's

illuminating that, stuffy Congressman from Massachusetts--vulgar

ungrammatcal shovel-maker--greasy knave of spades. I don't like this

sort of thing. She doesn't appear to be much distressed about me--she

hasn't looked this way once. All right, my bird of Paradise, if it suits

you, go on. But I think I know your sex. I'll go to smiling around a

little, too, and see what effect that will have on you"

And he did "smile around a little," and got as near to her as he could to

watch the effect, but the scheme was a failure--he could not get her

attention. She seemed wholly unconscious of him, and so he could not

flirt with any spirit; he could only talk disjointedly; he could not keep

his eyes on the charmers he talked to; he grew irritable, jealous, and

very, unhappy. He gave up his enterprise, leaned his shoulder against a

fluted pilaster and pouted while he kept watch upon Laura's every

movement. His other shoulder stole the bloom from many a lovely cheek

that brushed him in the surging crush, but he noted it not. He was too

busy cursing himself inwardly for being an egotistical imbecile. An hour

ago he had thought to take this country lass under his protection and

show her "life" and enjoy her wonder and delight--and here she was,

immersed in the marvel up to her eyes, and just a trifle more at home in

it than he was himself. And now his angry comments ran on again:

"Now she's sweetening old Brother Balaam; and he--well he is inviting her

to the Congressional prayer-meeting, no doubt--better let old Dilworthy

alone to see that she doesn't overlook that. And now its Splurge, of New

York; and now its Batters of New Hampshire--and now the Vice President!

Well I may as well adjourn. I've got enough."

But he hadn't. He got as far as the door--and then struggled back to

take one more look, hating himself all the while for his weakness.

Toward midnight, when supper was announced, the crowd thronged to the

supper room where a long table was decked out with what seemed a rare

repast, but which consisted of things better calculated to feast the eye

than the appetite. The ladies were soon seated in files along the wall,

and in groups here and there, and the colored waiters filled the plates

and glasses and the, male guests moved hither and thither conveying them

to the privileged sex.

Harry took an ice and stood up by the table with other gentlemen, and

listened to the buzz of conversation while he ate.

From these remarks he learned a good deal about Laura that was news to

him. For instance, that she was of a distinguished western family; that

she was highly educated; that she was very rich and a great landed

heiress; that she was not a professor of religion, and yet was a

Christian in the truest and best sense of the word, for her whole heart

was devoted to the accomplishment of a great and noble enterprise--none

other than the sacrificing of her landed estates to the uplifting of the

down-trodden negro and the turning of his erring feet into the way of

light and righteousness. Harry observed that as soon as one listener had

absorbed the story, he turned about and delivered it to his next neighbor

and the latter individual straightway passed it on. And thus he saw it

travel the round of the gentlemen and overflow rearward among the ladies.

He could not trace it backward to its fountain head, and so he could not

tell who it was that started it.

One thing annoyed Harry a great deal; and that was the reflection that he

might have been in Washington days and days ago and thrown his

fascinations about Laura with permanent effect while she was new and

strange to the capital, instead of dawdling in Philadelphia to no

purpose. He feared he had "missed a trick," as he expressed it.

He only found one little opportunity of speaking again with Laura before

the evening's festivities ended, and then, for the first time in years,

his airy self-complacency failed him, his tongue's easy confidence

forsook it in a great measure, and he was conscious of an unheroic

timidity. He was glad to get away and find a place where he could

despise himself in private and try to grow his clipped plumes again.

When Laura reached home she was tired but exultant, and Senator Dilworthy

was pleased and satisfied. He called Laura "my daughter," next morning,

and gave her some "pin money," as he termed it, and she sent a hundred

and fifty dollars of it to her mother and loaned a trifle to Col.

Sellers. Then the Senator had a long private conference with Laura, and

unfolded certain plans of his for the good of the country, and religion,

and the poor, and temperance, and showed her how she could assist him in

developing these worthy and noble enterprises.

CHAPTER XXXIII.