University of Virginia Library

32. 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 common-place
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,

[ILLUSTRATION]

THE FIRST RECEPTION.

[Description: 499EAF. Page 291. In-line image of a man and a woman sitting on a couh talking while people gather behind them in coversation.] 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 hang 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.