local government, to listen to his fierce, contemptuous
abuse of Tammany. And yet early in their engagement she had missed
something, something she had never known, but which she felt sure
should exist. Whether she had seen it in the lives of others, or read
of it in romances, or whether it was there because it was nature to
desire to be loved, she did not know. But long before Winthrop
returned from his trip round the world, in her meetings with the man
she was to marry, she had begun to find that there was something
lacking. And Winthrop had shown her that this something lacking was
the one thing needful. When Winthrop had gone abroad he was only one
of her brother's several charming friends. One of the amusing merry
youths who came and went in the house as freely as Sam himself. Now,
after two years' absence, he refused to be placed in that category.

He rebelled on the first night of his return. As she came down to the
dinner of welcome her brother was giving Winthrop, he stared at her as
though she were a ghost, and said, so solemnly that every one in the
room, even Peabody, smiled: "Now I know why I came home." That he
refused to recognize her engagement to Peabody, that on every occasion
he told her, or by some act showed her, he loved her; that he swore she
should never marry any one but himself, and that he would never marry
any one but her, did not at first, except to annoy, in any way impress
her.

But he showed her what in her intercourse with Peabody was lacking. At
first she wished Peabody could find time to be as fond of her, as
foolishly fond of her, as was Winthrop. But she realized that this was
unreasonable. Winthrop was just a hot-headed impressionable boy,
Peabody was a man doing a man's work. And then she found that week
after week she became more difficult to please. Other things in which
she wished Peabody might be more like Winthrop, obtruded themselves.
Little things which she was ashamed to notice, but which rankled; and
big things, such as consideration for others, and a sense of humor, and
not talking of himself. Since this campaign began, at times she had
felt that if Peabody said "I" once again, she must scream. She assured
herself she was as yet unworthy of him, that her intelligence was weak,
that as she grew older and so better able to understand serious
affairs, such as the importance of having an honest man at Albany as
Lieutenant-Governor, they would become more in