den walks and trellised arbors around it.

In front were so many evergreen trees and in the rear was so fine a
conservatory of blooming flowers, that even in the depth, of winter it
seemed like summer there.

The house was so secluded within its many thick trees and high garden
walls that the noise of the city never reached its inmates, though they
were within five minutes' walk of the Capitol and ten minutes' drive of
the President's mansion.

Judge Merlin had been very fortunate in securing for the season this
delightful home, where he could be within easy reach of his official
business and at the same time enjoy the quiet so necessary to his
temperament.

That winter he had been appointed one of the judges of the Supreme Court
of the United States, and it was very desirable to have so pleasant a
dwelling place within such easy reach of the Capitol, where the court
was held. At the head of this house his young daughter had been placed
as its mistress. She had not yet appeared anywhere in public. She was
reserving herself for two events: the arrival of her chaperone and the
first evening reception of the President. Her presence in the city was
not even certainly known beyond her own domestic circle; though a vague
rumor, started no one knew by whom, was afloat, to the effect that Miss
Merlin, the young Maryland heiress and beauty, was expected to come out
in Washington during the current season.

Meanwhile she remained in seclusion in her father's house.

It was to this delightful town house, so like the country in its
isolation, that Ishmael Worth was invited.

It was just at sunrise on Tuesday morning that the old steamer
"Columbia," having Ishmael on board, landed at the Seventh Street wharf,
and the young man, destined some future day to fill a high official
position in the Federal government, took his humble carpetbag in his
hand and entered the Federal city.

Ah! many thousands had entered the National capital before him, and many
more thousands would enter it after him, only to complain of it, to carp
over it, to laugh at it, for its "magnificent distances," its unfinished
buildings, its muddy streets, and its mean dwellings.

But Ishmael entered within its boundaries with feelings of reverence and
affection. It was the City of Washington, the sacred heart of the
nation.

He had heard it called by shallow-brained and short-sighted people a
sublime failure! It was a sublime idea, indeed, he thought, b