our before. He
knocked at her door, but there was no answer.

"That is like the Duchess," said he. "Always cool; a body can't excite
her-can't keep her excited, anyway. Now she has gone off to sleep again,
as comfortably as if she were used to picking up a million dollars every
day or two"

Then he vent to bed. But he could not sleep; so he got up and wrote a
long, rapturous letter to Louise, and another to his mother. And he
closed both to much the same effect:

"Laura will be queen of America, now, and she will be applauded, and
honored and petted by the whole nation. Her name will be in every
one's mouth more than ever, and how they will court her and quote
her bright speeches. And mine, too, I suppose; though they do that
more already, than they really seem to deserve. Oh, the world is so
bright, now, and so cheery; the clouds are all gone, our long
struggle is ended, our, troubles are all over. Nothing can ever
make us unhappy any more. You dear faithful ones will have the
reward of your patient waiting now. How father's Wisdom is proven
at last! And how I repent me, that there have been times when I
lost faith and said, the blessing he stored up for us a tedious
generation ago was but a long-drawn curse, a blight upon us all.
But everything is well, now--we are done with poverty, sad toil,
weariness and heart-break; all the world is filled with sunshine."

CHAPTER XLVI.

Philip left the capitol and walked up Pennsylvania Avenue in company with
Senator Dilworthy. It was a bright spring morning, the air was soft and
inspiring; in the deepening wayside green, the pink flush of the
blossoming peach trees, the soft suffusion on the heights of Arlington,
and the breath of the warm south wind was apparent, the annual miracle of
the resurrection of the earth.

The Senator took off his hat and seemed to open his soul to the sweet
influences of the morning. After the heat and noise of the chamber,
under its dull gas-illuminated glass canopy, and the all night struggle
of passion and feverish excitement there, the open, tranquil world seemed
like Heaven. The Senator was not in an exultant mood, but rather in a
condition of holy joy, befitting a Christian statesman whose benevolent
plans Providence has made its own and stamped with approval. The great
battle had been fought, but the measure had still to encounter the
scrutiny of