be expected to bear upon
his chances in the coming National Convention. Senator Hanway was
somewhat impressed by Mrs. Hanway-Harley's visit; his study had never
been that lady's favorite lounge. Moreover, her face proclaimed her
errand no common one.

"Why, I thought you were all in bed, Barbara," said Senator Hanway, by
way of opening conversation.

Mrs. Hanway-Harley, as calmly as she might, told of Dorothy's "mad
infatuation." She held back nothing except what portions of the tangle
referred to Storri. That nobleman's proposals she did not touch on. She
spoke of Richard, and the disaster, not to say the disgrace, to the
Harley name should he and Dorothy wed. Mrs. Hanway-Harley flowed on,
sometimes eloquent, always severe, and closed in with a thunder-gust of
tears.

Senator Hanway listened, first with wonder, then alarm; when she
finished he sat with an air of helplessness. After rubbing his nose
irresolutely with a pen-holder, he said:

"What can I do?"

"You can advise me."

"Well, then," observed Senator Hanway, looking right and left, being no
one to face an angry woman, "why don't you let them marry?"

"Brother!"

Mrs. Hanway-Harley strove to bury Senator Hanway beneath a mountain of
reproach with that one word.

"What can you do?" asked Senator Hanway defensively. "You say that
Dorothy declares she will marry young Storms in the teeth of every
opposition."

"Are we to permit the foolish girl to throw herself away?"

"But how will you restrain her?"

"One thing," exclaimed Mrs. Hanway-Harley, getting up to go; "that
person, after to-morrow, shall never enter these doors! I shall have but
one word; I shall warn him not to repeat his visits to this house."

The change that came over Senator Hanway struck Mrs. Hanway-Harley with
dumb dismay. His eye, which had been prying about for an easiest way out
of the dilemma, now filled with threatening interest.

"Barbara, sit down!" commanded Senator Hanway.

Mrs. Hanway-Harley sat down; she was, with the last word, in awe of her
eminent brother. Senator Hanway arose and towered above her with
forbidding brow. The threat to bar the Harley doors to Richard had set
him agog with angry apprehensions. What! should his best agent of
politics, one who was at once the correspondent of that powerful
influence the _Daily Tory_ and the authorized mouthpiece of the
potential Mr. Gwynn who owned the Anaconda, nay, was the Anaconda, be
insulted, and arrayed against