ed she sat quite
happily, though trembling, with his arm around her.

"Joyce," he continued, "you have a double duty: one to your mother and
this poor invalid, whose journey toward that Father's house not made
with hands is swiftly hastening; another duty toward your nobler
self--the future that is in you and your woman's heart. I tell you
again that you are beautiful, and the slavery to which you are
condemning yourself forever is an offence against the creator of such
perfection. Do you know what it is to love?"

"I know what it is to feel kindness," she answered after a time of
silence. "I ought to know no more. You goodness is very dear to me. We
never sleep, brother and I, but we say your name together, and ask God
to bless you."

Reybold sought in vain to suppress a confession he had resisted. The
contact of her form, her large dark eyes now fixed upon him in
emotion, the birth of the conscious woman in the virgin and her
affection still in the leashes of a slavish sacrifice, tempted him
onward to the conquest.

"I am about to retire from Congress," he said. "It is no place for me
in times so insubstantial. There is darkness and beggary ahead for all
your Southern race. There is a crisis coming which will be followed by
desolation. The generation to which your parents belong is doomed! I
open my arms to you, dear girl, and offer you a home never yet
gladdened by a wife. Accept it, and leave Washington with me and with
your brother. I love you wholly."

A happy light shone in her face a moment. She was weary to the bone
with the day's work, and had not the strength, if she had the will, to
prevent the Congressman drawing her to his heart. Sobbing there, she
spoke with bitter agony:

"Heaven bless you, dear Mr. Reybold, with a wife good enough to
deserve you! Blessings on your generous heart. But I cannot leave
Washington. I love another here!"

III.--DUST.

The Lake and Bayou Committee reaped the reward of a good action.
Crutch, the page, as they all called Uriel Basil, affected the
sensibility of the whole committee to the extent that profanity almost
ceased there, and vulgarity became a crime in the presence of a child.
Gentle words and wishes became the rule; a glimmer of reverence and a
thought of piety were not unknown in that little chamber.

"Dog my skin!" said Jeems Bee, "if I ever made a 'pintment that give
me sech satisfaction! I feel as if I had sot a nigger free!"

The youthful abstraction