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Senator North

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and he sprinkled magnetism like a huge watering-pot. Betty knew by this time that all men successful in American politics had this qualification, and had come in contact with it so often since her introduction to the Senate that it had ceased to have any effect on her except when emanating from one man. "Are you not frightfully tired?" she asked. "What a journey!" "Anything, even a fourteen hours' train journey, is heaven after Washington in hot weather. The asphalt pavements are reeking, and your heels go in when you forget to walk on your toes--and stick. But it is enchanting up here." His eyes dwelt with frank delight on her fresh blue organdie. "Oh, Washington does not exist," he exclaimed. "I thought constantly of you when we were struggling over that Tariff Bill in Committee, and I wanted to put all the fabrics you like on the free list, as a special compliment to you." "The unwritten history of a Committee Room! Law does not seem like law at all when one knows the makers of it. But you must be starved. If you will follow me blindly down the hall, I promise that you will really be glad you came." Miss Trumbull had attended personally to the supper, and he did it justice, although he continued to talk to Betty and to let his eyes express a more fervent admiration than had been their previous habit. "There's no hope for me," thought Betty, when Emory had taken him to his room. "He has made up his mind to propose during this visit. If I can only stave it off till the last minute!" As she went up the stair, she met Miss Trumbull, who was coming down. "Your supper was very good," she said kindly. "Thank you for sitting up." That was enough for the housekeeper, who appeared to have conceived a worship of the hand that had smitten her. It had seemed to Betty in the last few days that she met her admiring eyes whichever way she turned. Miss Trumbull put out her hand and fumbled at the lace on Miss Madison's gown. "Tell me," she drawled wheedlingly, "that's your beau, ain't it? I guessed he was when those flowers come, and the minute I set eyes on him, I said to myself, 'That's the gentleman for Miss Madison. My! but you'll make a handsome couple." "Oh!" exclaimed Betty. "Oh!" Then she laughed. The woman was too ridiculous for further anger. "Good-night," she said, and went on to her room. X Betty had organized a picnic for the following day, inviting several acquaintances from the hotel; and they all drove to a favourite spot in the forest. Mrs. Madison's maid had charge of many cushions, and disposed her tiny mistress--who looked like a wood fairy in lilac mull--comfortably on a bed of pine needles. Major Carter felt young once more as he grilled steaks at a camp-fire, and Harriet enchanted him with her rapt attention while his memory rioted in deeds of war. Senator Burleigh had never appeared so well, Betty thought. There was an out-of-door atmosphere about him at any time; no doubt he had been a mighty wind in the Senate more than once during the stormy passage of the Tariff Bill; but with all out-doors around him he looked nothing less than a mountain king. His large well-knit frame, full of strength and energy, was at its triumphant best in outing tweeds and Scotch stockings; his fair handsome face was boyish, despite its almost fierce determination, as he pranced about, intoxicated with the mountain air. "If you ever had spent one summer in Washington, you would understand," he said to Betty. "This is where I'd like to spend the rest of my life. I'd like to think I'd never see a city or the inside of a house again." "Then you'd probably hew down the forest, which would be a loss to the State: you would have to do something with your superfluous energy. And what would you do with your brain? Mere reading, when your arm ached from chopping, never would content you." "No, that is the worst of civilization. It either produces discontented savages like myself or goes too far and turns the whole body into brain. I have managed to get a sort of steam-engine into my head which gives me little rest and would wear out my body if I didn't happen to have the constitution of a buffalo. But I doubt if I shall be what North is, sixteen years hence. That man is the best example of equilibrium I have ever seen. His mental activity is enormous, but his control over himself is so absolute that he never wastes an ounce of force. I've seen him look as fresh at the end of a long day of debate as he was when he got on his feet. He never lets go of himself for a moment." That was the only time Betty heard Senator North's name mentioned during Burleigh's visit, for the younger man was much more interested in himself and the object of his holiday. "I think if it hadn't been for this Extra Session I should have followed you to California," he said abruptly. "I didn't know how much I depended for my entire happiness upon my frequent visits to your house until I came back after the short vacation and found you gone." "It would have been jolly to have had you in California. But you must feel that your time has not been thrown away. Are you satisfied with the Tariff Bill?" "I liked it fairly well as we re-wrote it, but I don't expect to care much about it after it comes out of conference. But there are no politics in the Adirondacks, and when a weary Senator is looking at a woman in a pale green muslin--" "You look anything but weary. I expect you will tramp over half the Adirondacks before you go back. And I am sure you will eat one of those beefsteaks. Come, they are ready." But although she managed to seat him between Sally Carter and an extremely pretty girl, he was at her side again the moment the gay party began to split into couples. "Will you come for a walk?" he asked. "I do want to roam about on the old trails the Indians made, and to get away from these hideous emblems of modern civilization--sailor hats. Thank heaven you don't wear a sailor hat." Betty shot a peremptory glance at Sally Carter, who nodded and started to follow with a small dark attache who had pursued herself and her million for five determined years. He was titled if not noble, a clever operator of a small brain, and a high-priest of teas. He knew the personnel of Washington Society so thoroughly that he never had

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