ions, it took little of my time. I had no leisure, however, for
there was Carlotta to look after.

* * * * *

When it was all over and she had told Ed and he had shaken hands with
her and had kissed me and had otherwise shown the chaotic condition of
his mind, and she and I were alone again, she said, "How did it happen?
I don't remember that you really proposed to me. Yet we certainly are
engaged."

"We certainly are," said I, "and that's the essential point, isn't it?"

"Yes," she admitted, "but,--" and she looked mystified.

"We drifted," I suggested.

She glanced at me with a smile that was an enigma. "Yes--we just
drifted. Why do you look at me so queerly?"

"I was just going to ask you that same question," said I by way of
evasion.

Then we both fell to thinking, and after a long time she roused herself
to say, "But we shall be very happy. I am so fond of you. And you are
going to be a great man and you do so look it, even if you aren't tall
and fair, as I always thought the man I married would be. Don't look at
me like that. Your eyes are strange enough when you are smiling; but
when you--I often wonder what you're so sad about."

"Have you ever seen a grown person's face that wasn't sad in repose?" I
asked, eager to shift from the particular to the general.

"A few idiots or near idiots," she replied with a laugh. Thereafter we
talked of the future and let the past sleep in its uncovered coffin.

V

A GOOD MAN AND HIS WOES

After Ed and I had carried the Fredonia election against Dunkirk's road,
we went fishing with Roebuck in the northern Wisconsin woods. I had two
weeks, two uninterrupted weeks, in which to impress myself upon him;
besides, there was Ed, who related in tedious but effective detail, on
the slightest provocation, the achievements that had made him my devoted
admirer. So, when I went to visit Roebuck, in June, at his house near
Chicago, he was ready to listen to me in the proper spirit.

I soon drew him on to tell of his troubles with Dunkirk--how the Senator
was gouging him and every big corporation doing business in the state.
"I've been loyal to the party for forty years," said he bitterly, "yet,
if I had been on the other side it couldn't cost me more to do business.
I have to pay enough here, heaven knows. But it costs me more in your
state,--with your man Dunkirk." His white face grew pink with anger.
"It's monstrous! Yet you should ha