get for to-night that there's
any discord in the world--any work--any worry. Let me be Contrary
Mary--happy, care-free, until it all begins over again in the morning."

Very softly she said it, and there were tears in her voice. He glanced
down at her in surprise. "Is that the way life looks to you--you poor
little thing?"

"Yes, and when you are cross, you make it harder."

Thus, woman-like, she put him in the wrong, and the question of violets
vs. orchids was shelved.

Presently, in the great red dining-room, Porter was ordering things for
Cousin Patty's delectation of which she had never heard. Her enjoyment
of the novelty of it all was refreshing. She tasted and ate and looked
about her as frankly as a happy child, yet never, with it all, lost her
little air of serene dignity, which set her apart from the flaming,
flaring type of femininity which abounds in such places.

The great spectacle of the crowded rooms made a deep impression on
Cousin Patty. To her this was no gathering of people who were eating
too much and drinking too much, and who were taking from the night the
hours which should have been given to sleep. To her it
was--fairy-land; all of the women were lovely, all of the men
celebrities--and the gold of the lights, the pink of the azaleas which
were everywhere in pots, the murmur of voices, the sweet insistence of
the music in the balcony, the trail of laughter over it all--these were
magical things, which might disappear at any moment, and leave her
among her boxes of wedding cake, after the clock struck twelve.

But it did not disappear, and she went home happy and too tired to talk.

At breakfast the next morning, Mary announced their programme for the
day.

"Delilah has telephoned that she wants us to have lunch with her at the
Capitol. Her father is in Congress, Cousin Patty, and they will show
us everything worth seeing. Then we'll go for a ride and have tea
somewhere, and the General and Leila have asked us for dinner. Shall
you be too tired?"

"Tired?" Cousin Patty's laugh trilled like the song of a bird. "I
feel as if I were on wings."

Cousin Patty trod the steps of the historic Capitol with awe. To her
these halls of legislation were sacred to the memory of Henry Clay and
of Daniel Webster. Every congressman was a Personage--and many a
simple man, torn between his desire to serve his constituents, and his
need to placate the big interests of his state, would have be