uliarities of speech, made defects
merely by comparison, there are no such natural orators and statesmen
in the world as are to be found in Congress; at the same time, the
would-be aristocracy of the country is remarkable for nothing so much as
for the very unaristocratic faculty of getting money--rarely mingling in
public questions, still more rarely producing anything of merit,
literary or artistic. Therefore, being so constituted that the almighty
dollar crowns the edifice of their ambitions as with a coronet of milled
silver, they are singularly inapt to suffer from such ills as prick the
soul, which taketh no thought for the morrow, what it shall eat or what
it shall drink.

Truly, a happy people, these American aristocrats.

CHAPTER XIX.

When Margaret awoke the next morning her first impulse was to go away
for a time. She was disgusted with New York, and desired nothing so much
as the sensation of being free from Mr. Barker. A moment, however,
sufficed to banish any such thoughts. In the first place, if she were
away from the metropolis it would take just so many hours longer for the
Doctor's letters to reach her. There had been a lacuna in the
correspondence of late, and it seemed to her that the letters she had
received were always dated some days before the time stamped on the
Heidelberg postmark. He spoke always of leaving very soon; but though he
said many loving and tender things, he was silent as to his own doings.
She supposed he was occupied with the important matter he described as
the "other reason," and so in the two or three short notes she wrote him
she abstained from questioning any more.

Furthermore, she reflected that however much she might wish to be away,
it was most emphatically not the thing to do. On the whole, she would
stay where she was.

She was roused from her reverie by Clementine, who entered in a halo of
smiles, as though she were the bearer of good news. In the first place
she had a telegram, which proved to be from Claudius, dated Berlin, and
simply announcing the fact that he would sail at once. Margaret could
hardly conceal her great satisfaction, and the colour came so quickly to
her face as she read the flimsy bit of paper from the cable office that
Clementine made the most desperate efforts to get possession of it, or
at least to see the signature. But Margaret kept it under her pillow for
half an hour, and then burned it carefully by the taper, to Clementine's