House first."

"Whose house?" says I, getting out of patience; "I thought we had come
to see Congress."

"So we have," says he; "it will assemble in a few minutes, so we must
hurry and get into the House."

"Why don't Congress assemble in this building?" says I.

"Of course it does, at the other end," says he.

"Then what on earth do you want to take me into any other house for? I
want to see Congress! As for the houses in Washington, they are no great
shakes, after all. New York wouldn't take the best of 'em as a gift."

"Cousin Phoemie," says Dempster, sort of impatient, "you are the most
extraordinary combination of a woman I ever saw."

I stopped short and made him a curtsey to the ground--slow, graceful,
and infinitely sarcastic. He seemed to feel it keenly.

"Judges, a little more competent than you are, have said as much
before," I observed, scathing him through and through with my eyes.

"I mean no offence," says he, "but really you are the brightest,
and--and stupidest woman!"

"Girl, if you please," says I.

"Well, girl. In some things a child could teach you; in others, you
fairly dazzle the brightest of us."

"Thank you," says I; "just crown me with bitter-sweet, and have done
with it. If there is anything that riles me more than another, it is a
double and twisted compliment."

"There, there! do be reasonable, and hurry along," says Dempster,
a-trying to shuffle out of the whole thing; "don't you see the members
crowding into the House?"

"I haven't seen the house yet," says I, not half pacified.

"Of course not--how can you, till we get there?"

Cousin Dempster walked on, and, of course, I had to follow.

"Wait one minute," says I, "while I look at this great round picture
overhead. What on earth is it all about? The women up there look mighty
unsafe. Now, what room is this, with its roof in the sky, and its floor
solid stone?"

"It is the rotunda," says he; "the national pictures are all around you,
but we haven't time to look at them now--some other day."

I couldn't help looking back, for such a room I never saw in my born
days. It was like a stone park roofed in so high up that the pictured
women overhead seemed perched among the clouds. Over them the light came
pouring like water down a cataract, filling the broad space below as if
it had been all out of doors.

But I had no time to see more, for Cousin Dempster led me through a
hallway and into another round room, except at o