Senator North | Page 3

politics than if we were Indians in Alaska? I was ashamed of
myself, I can assure you, when Lord Barnstaple asked me so many
questions the first time I visited Maundrell Abbey. He took for granted,
as I lived in Washington, I must be thoroughly well up in politics, and I
was obliged to tell him that although I had occasionally been in the
room with one or two Senators and Cabinet Ministers, who happened to
be in Society first and politics afterward, I didn't know the others by
name, had never put my foot in the White House or the Capitol, and
that no one I knew ever thought of talking politics. He asked me what I
had done with myself during all the winters I had spent in Washington,
and I told him that I had had the usual girls'-good-time,--teas, theatre,
Germans, dinners, luncheons, calls, calls, calls! I was glad to add that I
belonged to several charities and had read a great deal; but that did not
seem to interest him. Well, I met a good many men like Lord
Barnstaple, men who were in public life. Some of them were dull
enough, judged by the feminine standard, but even they occasionally
said something to remember, and others were delightful. This is the
whole point--I can't and won't go back to what I left here two years ago.
My day for platitudes and pouring tea for men, who are contemptible
enough to make Society their profession, is over. I am going to know
the real men of my country. It is incredible that there are not men in
that Senate as well worth talking to as any I met in England. The other
day I picked up a bound copy of the Congressional Record in a
book-shop. It was frantically interesting."
"It must have been! But, my dear--of course I understand, darling, your

desire for a new intellectual occupation; you always were so clever--but
you can't, you really can't know these men. They are--they
are--politicians. We never have known politicians. They are dreadful
people, who have come from low origins and would probably call me
'marm.'"
"You are all wrong, Molly. I bought a copy of the Congressional
Directory a day or two ago, and have read the biography of every
Senator. Nine-tenths of them are educated men; if only a few attended
the big Universities, the rest went to the colleges of their State. That is
enough for an American of brains. And most of them are lawyers;
others served in the war, and several have distinguished records. They
cannot be boors, whether they have blue blood in them or not. I'm sick
of blue blood, anyway. Vienna was the deadliest place I ever visited.
What makes London interesting is its red streak of plebeianism;--well, I
repeat, I think it really dreadful that we should not know even by name
the men who make our laws, who are making history, who may be
called upon at any moment to decide our fate among nations. I feel a
silly little fool."
"I suppose you mean that I am one too. But it always has been my boast,
Betty, that I never have had a politician in my house. Your father knew
some, but he never brought them here; he knew the fastidious manner
in which I had been brought up; and although I am afraid he kept late
hours with a good many of them at Chamberlin's and other dreadful
places, he always spared me. I suppose this is heredity working out in
you."
"Possibly. But you will admit, will you not, that I am old enough to
choose my own life?"
"You always have done every single thing you wanted, so I don't see
why you talk like that. But if you are going to bring a lot of men to this
house who will spit on my carpets and use toothpicks, I beg you will
not ask me to receive with you." "Of course you will receive with me,
Molly dear--when I know anybody worth receiving. Unfortunately I am
not the wife of the President and cannot send out a royal summons. I
am hoping that Lady Mary Montgomery will help me. But my first step

shall be to pay a daily visit to the Senate Gallery."
"What!" Mrs. Madison's weary voice flew to its upper register. "I do
know something about politics--I remember now--the only women who
go to the Capitol are lobbyists--dreadful creatures who--who--do all
sorts of things. You can't go there; you'll be taken for one."
"We none of us are taken very long for what we are not. I shall take
Leontine with me, and those interested enough to notice me will soon
learn what I go for."
Mrs. Madison burst into tears.