ase.

The morning was warm, the sky soft, the little steamer lay at the quiet
wharf with a few negroes lazily watching her preparations for departure.

Carrington, with Mrs. Lee and the young ladies, arrived first, and stood
leaning against the rail, waiting the arrival of their companions. Then
came Mr. Gore, neatly attired and gloved, with a light spring overcoat;
for Mr.

Gore was very careful of his personal appearance, and not a little vain
of his good looks. Then a pretty woman, with blue eyes and blonde hair,
dressed in black, and leading a little girl by the hand, came on board,
and Carrington went to shake hands with her. On his return to Mrs. Lee's
side, she asked about his new acquaintance, and he replied with a
half-laugh, as though he were not proud of her, that she was a client,
a pretty widow, well known in Washington. "Any one at the Capitol would
tell you all about her. She was the wife of a noted lobbyist, who died
about two years ago. Congressmen can refuse nothing to a pretty face,
and she was their idea of feminine perfection. Yet she is a silly little
woman, too. Her husband died after a very short illness, and, to my
great surprise, made me executor under his will. I think he had an idea
that he could trust me with his papers, which were important and
compromising, for he seems to have had no time to go over them and
destroy what were best out of the way. So, you see, I am left with his
widow and child to look after. Luckily, they are well provided for."

"Still you have not told me her name."

"Her name is Baker--Mrs. Sam Baker. But they are casting off, and Mr.
Ratcliffe will be left behind. I'll ask the captain to wait." About a
dozen passengers had arrived, among them the two Earls, with a footman
carrying a promising lunch-basket, and the planks were actually hauled
in when a carriage dashed up to the wharf, and Mr. Ratcliffe leaped out
and hurried on board. "Off with you as quick as you can!" said he to
the negro-hands, and in another moment the little steamer had begun her
journey, pounding the muddy waters of the Potomac and sending up its
small column of smoke as though it were a newly invented incense-burner
approaching the temple of the national deity. Ratcliffe explained in
great glee how he had barely managed to escape his visitors by telling
them that the British Minister was waiting for him, and that he would
be back again presently. "If they had known where I was going," said