their way to the hotel she spoke of it to her
mother.

"Bass said we might get some of the laundry of the men at the hotel
to do."

Mrs. Gerhardt, whose mind had been straining all night at the
problem of adding something to the three dollars which her six
afternoons would bring her, approved of the idea.

"So we might," she said. "I'll ask that clerk."

When they reached the hotel, however, no immediate opportunity
presented itself. They worked on until late in the afternoon. Then, as
fortune would have it, the housekeeper sent them in to scrub up the
floor behind the clerk's desk. That important individual felt very
kindly toward mother and daughter. He liked the former's sweetly
troubled countenance and the latter's pretty face. So he listened
graciously when Mrs. Gerhardt ventured meekly to put the question
which she had been revolving in her mind all the afternoon.

"Is there any gentleman here," she said, "who would give me his
washing to do? I'd be so very much obliged for it."

The clerk looked at her, and again recognized that absolute want
was written all over her anxious face.

"Let's see," he answered, thinking of Senator Brander and Marshall
Hopkins. Both were charitable men, who would be more than glad to aid
a poor woman. "You go up and see Senator Brander," he continued. "He's
in twenty-two. Here," he added, writing out the number, "you go up and
tell him I sent you."

Mrs. Gerhardt took the card with a tremor of gratefulness. Her eyes
looked the words she could not say.

"That's all right," said the clerk, observing her emotion. "You go
right up. You'll find him in his room now."

With the greatest diffidence Mrs. Gerhardt knocked at number
twenty-two. Jennie stood silently at her side.

After a moment the door was opened, and in the full radiance of the
bright room stood the Senator. Attired in a handsome smoking-coat, he
looked younger than at their first meeting.

"Well, madam," he said, recognizing the couple, and particularly
the daughter, "what can I do for you?"

Very much abashed, the mother hesitated in her reply.

"We would like to know if you have any washing you could let us
have to do?"

"Washing?" he repeated after her, in a voice which had a peculiarly
resonant quality. "Washing? Come right in. Let me see."

He stepped aside with much grace, waved them in and closed the
door. "Let me see," he repeated, opening and closing drawer after
drawer of the massive black-wal