Democracy

of the old Washington school, he had seen from the first that, whatever issue the war took, Virginia and he must be ruined. At twenty-two he had gone into the rebel army as a private and carried his musket modestly through a campaign or two, after which he slowly rose to the rank of senior captain in his regiment, and closed his services on the staff of a major-general, always doing scrupulously enough what he conceived to be his duty, and never doing it with enthusiasm. When the rebel armies surrendered, he rode away to his family plantation⁠—not a difficult thing to do, for it was only a few miles from Appomattox⁠—and at once began to study law; then, leaving his mother and sisters to do what they could with the worn-out plantation, he began the practice of law in Washington, hoping thus to support himself and them. He had succeeded after a fashion, and for the first time the future seemed not absolutely dark. Mrs. Lee’s house was an oasis to him, and he found himself, to his surprise, almost gay in her company. The gaiety was of a very quiet kind, and Sybil, while friendly with him, averred that he was certainly dull; but this dullness had a fascination for Madeleine, who, having tasted many more kinds of the wine of life than Sybil, had learned to value certain delicacies of age and flavour that were lost upon younger and coarser palates. He talked rather slowly and almost with effort, but he had something of the dignity⁠—others call it stiffness⁠—of the old Virginia school, and twenty years of constant responsibility and deferred hope had added a touch of care that bordered closely on sadness. His great attraction was that he never talked or seemed to think of himself. Mrs. Lee trusted in him by instinct. “He is a type!” said she; “he is my idea of George Washington at thirty.”

One morning in December, Carrington entered Mrs. Lee’s parlour towards noon, and asked if she cared to visit the Capitol.

“You will have a chance of hearing today what may be the last great speech of our greatest statesman,” said he; “you should come.”

“A splendid sample of our native raw material, sir?” asked she, fresh from a reading of Dickens, and his famous picture of American statesmanship.

“Precisely so,” said Carrington; “the Prairie Giant of Peonia, the Favourite Son of Illinois; the man who came within three votes of getting the party nomination for the Presidency last spring, and was only defeated because ten small intriguers are sharper than one big one. The Honourable Silas P. Ratcliffe, Senator from Illinois; he will be run for the Presidency yet.”

“What does the P. stand for?” asked Sybil.

“I don’t remember ever to have heard his middle name,” said Carrington. “Perhaps it is Peonia or Prairie; I can’t say.”

“He is the man whose appearance struck me so much when we were in the Senate last week, is he not? A great, ponderous man, over six feet high, very senatorial and dignified, with a large head and rather good features?” inquired Mrs. Lee.

“The same,” replied Carrington. “By all means hear him speak. He is the stumbling-block of the new President, who is to be allowed no peace unless he makes terms with Ratcliffe; and so everyone thinks that the Prairie Giant of Peonia will have the choice of the State or Treasury Department. If he takes either it will be the Treasury, for he is a desperate political manager, and will want the patronage for the next national convention.”

Mrs. Lee was delighted to hear the debate, and Carrington was delighted to sit through it by her side, and to exchange running comments with her on the speeches and the speakers.

“Have you ever met the Senator?” asked she.

“I have acted several times as counsel before his committees. He is an excellent chairman, always attentive and generally civil.”

“Where was he born?”

“The family is a New England one, and I believe respectable. He came, I think, from some place in the Connecticut Valley, but whether Vermont, New Hampshire, or Massachusetts, I don’t know.”

“Is he an educated man?”

“He got a kind of classical education at one of the country colleges there. I suspect he has as much education as is good for him. But he went West very soon after leaving college, and being then young and fresh from that hotbed of abolition, he threw himself into the anti-slavery movement in Illinois, and after a long struggle he rose with the wave. He would not do the same thing now.”

“Why not?”

“He is older, more experienced, and not so wise. Besides, he has no longer the time to wait. Can you see his eyes from here? I call them Yankee eyes.”

“Don’t abuse the Yankees,” said Mrs. Lee; “I am half Yankee myself.”

“Is that abuse? Do you mean to deny that they have eyes?”

“I concede that there may be eyes among them; but Virginians are not fair judges of their expression.”

“Cold eyes,” he continued; “steel grey, rather small, not unpleasant in good-humour, diabolic in a passion, but worst when a little suspicious; then they watch you as though you were a young rattlesnake, to be killed when convenient.”

“Does he not look you in the face?”

“Yes; but not as though he liked you. His eyes only seem to ask the possible uses you might be put to. Ah, the vice-president has given him the floor; now we shall have it. Hard voice, is it not? like his eyes. Hard manner, like his voice. Hard all through.”

“What a pity he is so dreadfully senatorial!” said Mrs. Lee; “otherwise I rather admire him.”

“Now he is settling down to his work,” continued Carrington. “See how he dodges all the sharp issues. What a thing it is to be a Yankee! What a genius the fellow has for leading a party! Do you see how well it is all done? The new President flattered and conciliated, the party united and given a strong lead. And