isk reporters boarded it; the newspapers devoted
columns to descriptions of it; editorials glorified it as a signal
example of the progress of the great republic, or moralized on it as a
sign of the luxurious decadence of morals; pointing to Carthage and Rome
and Alexandria in withering sarcasm that made those places sink into
insignificance as corrupters of the world. There were covert allusions
to Cleopatra ensconced in the silken hangings of the boudoir car, and
one reporter went so far as to refer to the luxury of Capua and Baiae,
to their disparagement. All this, however, was felt to add to the glory
of the republic, and it all increased the importance of Henderson. To
hear the exclamations, "That's he!" "That's him!" "That's Henderson!"
was to Margaret in some degree a realization of her ambition; and Carmen
declared that it was for her a sweet thought to be identified with
Cleopatra.

So the Catachoobee University had its splendid new building--as great a
contrast to the shanties from which its pupils came as is the Capitol
at Washington to the huts of a third of its population. If the reader is
curious he may read in the local newspapers of the time glowing accounts
of its "inaugural dedication"; but universities are so common in this
country that it has become a little wearisome to read of ceremonies of
this sort. Mr. Henderson made a modest reply to the barefaced eulogy on
himself, which the president pronounced in the presence of six hundred
young men and women of various colors and invited guests--a eulogy which
no one more thoroughly enjoyed than Carmen. I am sorry to say that she
refused to take the affair seriously.

"I felt for you, Mr. Henderson,"; she said, after the exercises were
over. "I blushed for you. I almost felt ashamed, after all the president
said, that you had given so little."

"You seem, Miss Eschelle," remarked Mr. Ponsonby, "to be enthusiastic
about the education and elevation of the colored people."

"Yes, I am; I quite share Mr. Henderson's feeling about it. I'm for the
elevation of everything."

"There is a capital chance for you," said Henderson; "the university
wants some scholarships."

"And I've half a mind to found one--the Eschelle Scholarship of Washing
and Clear-starching. You ought to have seen my clothes that came back to
the car. Probably they were not done by your students. The things looked
as if they had been dragged through the Cat-a-what-do-you-call-it River,
a