tions. It was the autumn of the year 1868, and
he was an enthusiastic admirer of Grant. He stumped the State for that
admirable warrior and indifferent statesman, with the result that his
own following increased; and his interest in politics waxed with each of
several notable successes in behalf of the candidate. He finally
announced decisively that he should run for Congress at the next
elections, and a member of the House of Representatives from his
district dying two days later, he was appointed at once to fill the
vacant chair.

The Senora was still in bed with a persistent cold and cough when he
left for Washington late in November, but he rode over to leave a
good-bye with old Marcia, and ordered a bookseller in San Francisco to
send her all the illustrated papers and magazines.

She entered his mind but seldom during those interesting months in
Washington. Talbot became sure of his particular talent at last, and
determined to remain in politics for the rest of his life. Moreover, the
excitement until the 4th of March was intense, for Southern blood was
still hot and bitter, and there were rumors in the air that Grant would
be assassinated on the day of his inauguration. He was not, however,
and Talbot was glad to be in Washington on that memorable day. He wrote
the Senora an account both of the military appearance of the city and of
the brilliant scene in the Senate Chamber, but she had ceased, for the
time, to be a weekly necessity in his life.

And being a bachelor, wealthy, handsome, and properly launched, he was
soon skimming that social sea of many crafts. For the first time since
his abrupt severance from the Los Olivos festivities he enjoyed society.
San Francisco's had seemed a poor imitation of what novels described,
but Washington was full of brilliant interest. And he met more than one
woman who recalled his boyish ideals, women who were far more like the
vision in the English church-yard than Delfina Carillo; who, indeed, had
not resembled the English girl in anything but manifest of race, and had
been an ideal apart, never to be encountered again in this world.

It was a long and exciting session, and he gave all the energies of his
mind to the great question of reconstruction, but more than once he
asked himself if the time had not come to marry, if it were not a duty
to his old self to gratify the ambition to which he owed the foundations
of his success with life. A beautiful and high-bred wife