Senator North | Page 5

mission. As for spittoons
and toothpicks, they are conspicuous in every hotel in the United States.
They should be on our coat-of-arms, and the Great American Novel
will be called 'The Great American Toothpick.' Statesmen have cut
their teeth on it, and it has been their solace in the great crises of the
nation's history. As for spittoons, they were invented for our own
Southern aristocrats who loved tobacco then as now. They decorate our
Capitol as a mere matter of form. I don't pretend to hope that ninety
representative Americans are Beau Brummels, but there must be a
respectable minority of gentlemen-- whether self-made or not I don't
care. I am going to make a deliberate attempt to know that minority,
and shall call on Lady Mary Montgomery this afternoon as the first step.
So you are resigned, are you not, Molly dear?"
"No, I am not! But what can I do? I have spoiled you, and you would
be just the same if I hadn't. You are more like the men of the family
than the women--they always would have their own way. Are they all
married?" she added anxiously.
"Do you mean the ninety Senators and the three hundred and fifty-six
Representatives? I am sure I do not know. Don't let that worry you. It is

my mind that is on the qui vive, not my heart."
"You'll hear some old fool make a Websterian speech full of periods
and rhetoric, and you'll straight-way imagine yourself in love with him.
Your head will be your worst enemy when you do fall in love."
"Webster is the greatest master of style this country has produced. I
should hate a man who used either 'periods' or rhetoric. I am the
concentrated essence of modernism and have no use for 'oratory' or
'eloquence.' Some of the little speeches in the Record are masterpieces
of brevity and pure English, particularly Senator North's."
"You are modern. If we had a Clay, I could understand you--I am too
exhausted to discuss the matter further; you must drop it for the present.
What will Jack Emory say?"
"I have never given him the least right to say anything."
"I almost wish you were safely married to him. He has not made a great
success of his life, but he is your equal and his manners are perfect. I
shall live in constant fear now of your marrying a horror with a twang
and a toothpick."
"I promise you I won't do that--and that I never will marry Jack
Emory."

II

Betty Madison had exercised a great deal of self-control in resisting the
natural impulse to cultivate a fad and grapple with a problem. Only her
keen sense of humour saved her. On the Sunday following her return,
while sauntering home after a long restless tramp about the city, she
passed a church which many coloured people were entering. Her newly
awakened curiosity in all things pertaining to the political life of her
country prompted her to follow them and sit through the service. The

clergyman was light in colour, and prayed and preached in simpler and
better English than she had heard in more pretentious pulpits, but there
was nothing noteworthy, in his remarks beyond a supplication to the
Almighty to deliver the negro from the oppression of the "Southern
tyrant," followed by an admonition to the negro to improve himself in
mind and character if he would hope to compete with the Whites; bitter
words and violence but weakened his cause.
This was sound commonsense, but the reverse of the sensational
entertainment Betty had half expected, and her eyes wandered from the
preacher to his congregation. There were all shades of Afro-American
colour and all degrees of prosperity represented. Coal-black women
were there, attired in deep and expensive mourning. "Yellow girls"
wore smart little tailor costumes. Three young girls, evidently of the
lower middle class of coloured society, for they were cheaply dressed,
had all the little airs and graces and mannerisms of the typical
American girl. In one corner a sleek mulatto with a Semitic profile sat
in the recognized attitude of the banker in church; filling his corner
comfortably and setting a worthy example to the less favoured of
Mammon.
But Betty's attention suddenly was arrested and held by two men who
sat on the opposite side of the aisle, although not together, and
apparently were unrelated. There were no others quite like them in the
church, but the conviction slowly forced itself into her mind, magnetic
for new impressions, that there were many elsewhere. They were men
who were descending the fifties, tall, with straight gray hair. One was
very slender, and all but distinguished of carriage; the other was
heavier, and would have been imposing but for the listless