“Here is an old sundial. Do you have sundials in Ireland, Lord Dunbeg?”
“Yes; oh, certainly! What! sundials? Oh, yes! I assure you there are a great many sundials in Ireland, Miss Dare.”
“I am so glad. But I suppose they are only for ornament. Here it is just the other way. Look at this one! they all behave like that. The wear and tear of our sun is too much for them; they don’t last. My uncle, who has a place at Long Branch, had five sundials in ten years.”
“How very odd! But really now, Miss Dare, I don’t see how a sundial could wear out.”
“Don’t you? How strange! Don’t you see, they get soaked with sunshine so that they can’t hold shadow. It’s like me, you know. I have such a good time all the time that I can’t be unhappy. Do you ever read the Burlington Hawkeye, Lord Dunbeg?”
“I don’t remember; I think not. Is it an American serial?” gasped Dunbeg, trying hard to keep pace with Miss Dare in her reckless dashes across country.
“No, not serial at all!” replied Virginia; “but I am afraid you would find it very hard reading. I shouldn’t try.”
“Do you read it much, Miss Dare?”
“Oh, always! I am not really as light as I seem. But then I have an advantage over you because I know the language.”
By this time Dunbeg was awake again, and Miss Dare, satisfied with her success, allowed herself to become more reasonable, until a slight shade of sentiment began to flicker about their path.
The scattered party, however, soon had to unite again. The boat rang its bell for return, they filed down the paths and settled themselves in their old places. As they steamed away, Mrs. Lee watched the sunny hillside and the peaceful house above, until she could see them no more, and the longer she looked, the less she was pleased with herself. Was it true, as Victoria Dare said, that she could not live in so pure an air? Did she really need the denser fumes of the city? Was she, unknown to herself; gradually becoming tainted with the life about her? or was Ratcliffe right in accepting the good and the bad together, and in being of his time since he was in it? Why was it, she said bitterly to herself, that everything Washington touched, he purified, even down to the associations of his house? and why is it that everything we touch seems soiled? Why do I feel unclean when I look at Mount Vernon? In spite of Mr. Ratcliffe, is it not better to be a child and to cry for the moon and stars?
The little Baker girl came up to her where she stood, and began playing with her parasol.
“Who is your little friend?” asked Ratcliffe.
Mrs. Lee rather vaguely replied that she was the daughter of that pretty woman in black; she believed her name was Baker.
“Baker, did you say?” repeated Ratcliffe.
“Baker—Mrs. Sam Baker; at least so Mr. Carrington told me; he said she was a client of his.”
In fact Ratcliffe soon saw Carrington go up to her and remain by her side during the rest of the trip. Ratcliffe watched them sharply and grew more and more absorbed in his own thoughts as the boat drew nearer and nearer the shore.
Carrington was in high spirits. He thought he had played his cards with unusual success. Even Miss Dare deigned to acknowledge his charms that day. She declared herself to be the moral image of Martha Washington, and she started a discussion whether Carrington or Lord Dunbeg would best suit her in the role of the General.
“Mr. Carrington is exemplary,” she said, “but oh, what joy to be Martha Washington and a Countess too!”
VII
When he reached his rooms that afternoon, Senator Ratcliffe found there, as he expected, a choice company of friends and admirers, who had beguiled their leisure hours since noon by cursing him in every variety of profane language that experience could suggest and impatience stimulate. On his part, had he consulted his own feelings only, he would then and there have turned them out, and locked the doors behind them. So far as silent maledictions were concerned, no profanity of theirs could hold its own against the intensity and deliberation with which, as he found himself approaching his own door, he expressed between his teeth his views in respect to their eternal interests. Nothing could be less suited to his present humour than the society which awaited him in his rooms. He groaned in spirit as he sat down at his writing-table and looked about him. Dozens of office-seekers were besieging the house; men whose patriotic services in the last election called loudly for recognition from a grateful country. They brought their applications to the Senator with an entreaty that he would endorse and take charge of them. Several members and senators who felt that Ratcliffe had no reason for existence except to fight their battle for patronage, were lounging about his room, reading newspapers, or beguiling their time with tobacco in various forms; at long intervals making dull remarks, as though they were more weary than their constituents of the atmosphere that surrounds the grandest government the sun ever shone upon. Several newspaper correspondents, eager to barter their news for Ratcliffe’s hints or suggestions, appeared from time to time on the scene, and, dropping into a chair by Ratcliffe’s desk, whispered with him in mysterious tones.
Thus the Senator worked on, hour after hour, mechanically doing what was required of him, signing papers without reading them, answering remarks without hearing them, hardly looking up from his desk, and appearing immersed in labour. This was his protection against curiosity and garrulity. The pretence of work was the curtain he drew between himself and the world. Behind this curtain his mental operations went on,
