othed bridegrooms
awaited them. Either bridegroom looked gladly at the flow of his
sister's garments and almost darkly at his bride's. For Helen was decked
in Parisian splendor, while Mary was gowned in the Fleece.

"'Tis thy marriage morning, shining in the sun!"

Up floated the song of the little dark-faced children, and Zora
listened.

_Twenty-two_

MISS CAROLINE WYNN

Bles Alwyn was seated in the anteroom of Senator Smith's office in
Washington. The Senator had not come in yet, and there were others
waiting, too.

The young man sat in a corner, dreaming. Washington was his first great
city, and it seemed a never-ending delight--the streets, the buildings,
the crowds; the shops, and lights, and noise; the kaleidoscopic panorama
of a world's doing, the myriad forms and faces, the talk and laughter of
men. It was all wonderful magic to the country boy, and he stretched his
arms and filled his lungs and cried: "Here I shall live!"

Especially was he attracted by his own people. They seemed transformed,
revivified, changed. Some might be mistaken for field hands on a
holiday--but not many. Others he did not recognize--they seemed strange
and alien--sharper, quicker, and at once more overbearing and more
unscrupulous.

There were yet others--and at the sight of these Bles stood straighter
and breathed like a man. They were well dressed, and well appearing men
and women, who walked upright and looked one in the eye, and seemed like
persons of affairs and money. They had arrived--they were men--they
filled his mind's ideal--he felt like going up to them and grasping
their hands and saying, "At last, brother!" Ah, it was good to find
one's dreams, walking in the light, in flesh and blood. Continually such
thoughts were surging through his brain, and they were rioting through
it again as he sat waiting in Senator Smith's office.

The Senator was late this morning; when he came in he glanced at the
morning paper before looking over his mail and the list of his callers.
"Do fools like the American people deserve salvation?" he sneered,
holding off the headlines and glancing at them.

"'League Beats Trust.' ... 'Farmers of South Smash Effort to Bear Market
... Send Cotton to Twelve Cents ... Common People Triumph.'

"A man is induced to bite off his own nose and then to sing a paean of
victory. It's nauseating--senseless. There is no earthly use striving
for such blockheads; they'd crucify any Saviour." Thu