nd
tenderness and aspiring faith, as her mother had before her, while at
the same time she has forsaken the beaten path of convention and turned
her brow to the morning. All of which, Josephine informs me, is
charming reasoning, provided Winona does not fall in love with
somebody. I do not understand the precise logic of this criticism;
but, on the other hand, Josephine is very apt to know what she is
talking about.

VIII

I came home one afternoon with a puckered brow.

"Has the Supreme Court decided another case against you?" asked
Josephine, with solicitude.

I shook my head, and answered wearily: "Worse than that."

My wife regarded me in anxious silence, while manifestly she was
cudgelling her brains to divine what could have happened. As she told
me afterward, she imagined, from my doleful air, that I must at least
have a seed in my little sac.

"They have asked me to run for Congress in this district," I finally
vouchsafed to state.

Josephine dropped her fancy-work and sat upright with an air of
satisfaction which was wholly out of keeping with my own dejected mien.

"Really, Fred! Who has asked you? The Governor?"

"The Governor does not usually go round on his bended knees asking
candidates to run for Congress," I answered, with mild sarcasm.

"Well, the Mayor then?"

I have labored for years to make plain to Josephine the ramifications
of our National, State, and Municipal Government; but just as I am
beginning to think that she understands the matter tolerably well, she
is sure to break out in some such hopeless fashion as this, which shows
that her conceptions are still crookeder than a ram's horn. And the
strangest part is that she can tell you all about the English
Parliament and Home Rule, and whether any given statesman is a Liberal
or a Liberal Unionist, and about M. Clemenceau and the relative
strength of the Bonapartists and Orleans factions. But when it comes
to distinguishing clearly between an Alderman and a State Senator, or a
Member of Congress and a Member of the Legislature, she is apt to get
exasperatingly muddled. I asked her once, in my most impressive
manner, why it was that she did not take a more vital interest in the
politics of her native country, and after reflecting a moment, she told
me that she thought it must be because they were so stupid. On the
other hand, with apparent inconsistency, she has many times expressed
the hope that I would some day be c