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Senator North

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an income on her and send her to Europe: in placing her above temptation you will have done your duty." "But that is the whole point--to be sure that _you_ do the right thing." "I almost hope she will be impossible, so that I can wipe her off the slate at once. Otherwise it will be a terrible problem." "It is no problem at all. There is no problem in plain duty. Problems exist principally in works of fiction and in the minds of unoccupied women. If you meet each development of every question in the most natural and reasonable manner,--presupposing that you possess that highest attribute of civilization, common-sense,--no question will ever resolve itself into a problem. And difficulties usually disappear as the range of vision contracts. If your house takes fire, you save what you can, not what you have elaborately planned to save in case of fire. Train your common-sense and let the windy analysis pertaining to problems alone." "But how can I ever get over the horror of the thing, Mr. North?" "You will forget all about it when she has been your daily companion for a few weeks. If she lacked a nose, you would as soon cease to remember it. If this girl is worth liking, you will like her, and soon cease to feel tragic. Leave that to her!" "I know that you are right, and of course I shall take your advice. I did not come here to trouble you for nothing. But if I liked her at first and not afterward--" "Pack her off to Europe. Europe will console an American woman for every ill in life. If you take the right attitude in the beginning, it all rests with her after that. You will have but one duty further. If she wishes to marry, you must tell the man the truth, if she will not. Don't hesitate on that point a moment. Her children are liable to be coal-black. That African blood seems to have a curse on it, and the curse is usually visited on the unoffending." "I will, I will," said Betty. She rose, and he rose also and took her hand in both of his. She felt an almost irresistible desire to put her head on his shoulder, for she was tired and depressed. "Your attitude in the matter is the important thing to me," he said. "That is why I have spoken so emphatically. You are a child yet, in spite of your twenty-seven years and your admirable intelligence. This is practically your first trial, the first time you have been called upon to make a decision which, either way, is bound to have a strong effect on your character, and to affect still greater decisions you may be called upon to make in the future. You have only one defect; you are not quite serious enough--yet." "I feel very serious just now," said Betty, with a sigh; and in truth she did, and her new-found sister was not the only thing that perplexed her. "One of these days you will be a singularly perfect woman," he added, and then he dropped her hand and walked to the door. As he was about to open it, she touched his arm timidly. "Will you come and see me on Sunday?" she asked. "I shall have been through a good deal between now and then, and I shall want--I shall want to talk to you." "I will come," he said. "Not before half-past four. My mother will be asleep then, and my cousin, Jack Emory, have gone home--there will be so many things I shall want to talk to you about." "I shall be there at half-past four," he said. "Good-bye. Good-bye." XI Betty went home to her room and cried steadily for an hour. She would not analyze the complex source of her emotions, but addressed a bitter reproach to her father's shade; and she reassured herself by frankly admitting that it would give her pleasure to win the approval of Senator North. She bathed her eyes and went to her mother's room. The sooner that ordeal was over, she reflected, the better. Mrs. Madison was reading an amusing novel and looked up with a smile, then pushed the book aside. "Have you been crying, darling?" she asked. "What can be the matter?" Betty told her story without preamble. Her mother's nerves could stand a shock, but not three minutes of uncertainty. Mrs. Madison listened with more equanimity than Betty anticipated. "I suppose I may consider myself fortunate that I have not had one of his brats thrust on me before," she remarked philosophically. "What are we to do about this creature?" "There is only one human thing to do. It is not her fault, and she is very wretched at present. And now that I know the truth I suppose I am as responsible as my father would be if he were alive. I shall go to see her to-morrow, and if she is presentable and seems good I shall bring her to Washington. Of course I shall not bring her here without your permission--it is your house. Let me read you his letter." "Do you feel very strongly on the subject?" Mrs. Madison asked when Betty had finished. "Oh, I do! I do! I will promise not to bring her to Washington at all if she is impossible, but if she is all I feel sure she must be, let me bring her here for a few weeks, until we have decided what to do for her. I know it is a great deal to ask--her presence cannot fail to be hateful to you--" "My dear, I have outlived any feeling of that sort, and I have not put everything on your shoulders all these years to thwart you now, when you feel so deeply. Moreover, an old memory came to me while you were reading that letter. When I was a little girl, about eight or ten, I spent an entire summer with Aunt Mary Eager at her home in Virginia. She had a house full, and there were five other little girls beside myself. A brook ran across the foot of the plantation, and we were very fond of playing there. Directly across was the hut of a freed slave who had a little girl about our own age. The child was a beautiful octaroon. I can see her plainly, with her honey-coloured skin, her immense black eyes, her long straight black hair, and her stiff little white frock tucked to the waist. Her mother took the greatest pride in her, and was always changing her clothes. "Every day she used to come to the edge of her side of the brook and watch us. We never noticed her, for although we often played with the little black piccaninnies, the yellow child of a freed slave was another matter. One day--I think she had watched us for about a week-- she came half-way across the bridge. We stared at each other, but took

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