made out of these two that the result would be something quite
extraordinary in the places of public entertainment. But, by a process
which nobody can explain, in the union the art of cooking in hotels got
mislaid."

"Well," she said, with winning illogicality, "you've got me."

"If you could only eat the breakfasts for me, as you can see the
Monument for me!"

"Dear, I could eat the Monument for you, if it would do you any good."
And neither of them was ashamed of this nonsense, for both knew that
married people indulge in it when they are happy.

Although Henderson came to Washington on business, this was Margaret's
wedding journey. There is no other city in the world where a wedding
journey can better be combined with such business as is transacted here,
for in both is a certain element of mystery. Washington is gracious to
a bride, if she is pretty and agreeable--devotion to governing, or
to legislation, or to diplomacy, does not render a man insensible to
feminine attractions; and if in addition to beauty a woman has the
reputation of wealth, she is as nearly irresistible here as anywhere. To
Margaret, who was able to return the hospitality she received, and
whose equipage was almost as much admired as her toilets, all doors were
open--a very natural thing, surely, in a good-natured, give-and-take
world. The colonel--Margaret had laughed till she cried when first
she heard her husband saluted by this title in Washington by his New
Hampshire acquaintances, but he explained to her that he had justly won
it years ago by undergoing the hardship of receptions as a member of the
Governor's staff--the colonel had brought on his horses and carriages,
not at all by way of ostentation, but simply out of regard to what
was due her as his wife, and because a carriage at call is a constant
necessity in this city, whose dignity is equal to the square of its
distances, and because there is something incongruous in sending a bride
about in a herdic. Margaret's unworldly simplicity had received a little
shock when she first saw her servants in livery, but she was not slow
to see the propriety and even necessity of it in a republican society,
since elegance cannot be a patchwork, but must be harmonious, and
there is no harmony between a stylish turnout--noble horses nobly
caparisoned--and a coachman and footman on the box dressed according to
their own vulgar taste. Given a certain position, one's sense of fitness
and taste mas