ps leading to the west front of the building.
Everywhere the untrodden snow lay white and level.

"This is the finest part of the whole thing," Radbourn remarked, as
they reached the level of esplanade. "It has more beauty and simple
majesty than the main building itself, or any structure in the city."

It was magnificent. Bradley turned and looked at it right and left with
admiring eyes. It gleamed with snow, and all about was the sound of
dripping water, and in the distance the roll of wheels and click of
hoofs. The esplanade was a broad walk extending the entire width of the
building, and conforming to it. It was bottomed with marble squares,
and bordered with a splendid wall, breast-high on one side, and by the
final terrace running to the basement wall on the other. Here and there
along the wall gigantic brazen pots sat, filled with evergreens, whose
color seemed to have gradually dropped down and entered into the marble
beneath them. The bronze had stained with rich, dull green each
pedestal and irregular sections of the marble wall itself.

Below them the city was outspread. Radbourn pointed out the Pension
Office, the White House, the Treasury, and other principal buildings
with a searching word upon their architecture. The monument, he
evidently considered, required no comment.

As they entered the dome, they passed a group of men whose brisk, bluff
talk and peculiar swagger indicated their character--legislators from
small country towns.

"Some of your colleagues," Radbourn said, indicating them with his
thumb. As they paused a moment in the centre of the dome, one of the
group, a handsome fellow with a waxed mustache and hard, black eyes,
gave a stretching gesture, and said, "I'm in the world now."

His words thrilled Bradley to the heart. He was in the world now. Des
Moines and its capitol were dwarfed and overshadowed by this great
national city, to which all roads ran like veins to a mighty heart. He
lifted his shoulders in a deep breath. It was glorious to be a
congressman, but still more glorious to be a citizen of the world.

They passed through the corridors in upon the house floor, which
swarmed with legislators, lobbyists, pages, newspaper men and visitors.
Radbourn led the way down to the open space before the speaker's desk,
and together they turned and swept the semi-circular rows of seats.

"Everywhere the visitor abounds," said Radbourn. "Western and Southern
men predominate. It's surpri