ept me almost as much in the dark as yourself, sir. But
I only wanted to ask if, after I have seen her to-day, and if I should
gain her consent to an early day, you would not waive any objections on
your own part and allow the matter to go forward as soon as possible?"

In answer to this he arose from his chair and stood looking out of the
window, his back turned to me. I could not call his reception of my
suggestion enthusiastic; but at last he turned.

"I presume that our two families might send you young people a sack of
meal or a side of bacon now and then, as far as that is concerned," he
said.

I could not call this speech joyous.

"There are said to be risks in any union, sir," I ventured to say. "I
admit I do not follow you in contemplating any risk whatever. If either
you or your daughter doubts my loyalty or affection, then I should say
certainly it were wise to end all this; but--" and I fancied I
straightened perceptibly--"I think that might perhaps be left to Miss
Elisabeth herself."

After all, Mr. Dan Churchill was obliged to yield, as fathers have been
obliged from the beginning of the world. At last he told me I might take
my fate in my own hands and go my way.

Trust the instinct of lovers to bring them together! I was quite
confident that at that hour I should find Elisabeth and her aunt in the
big East Room at the president's reception, the former looking on with
her uncompromising eyes at the little pageant which on reception days
regularly went forward there.

My conclusion was correct. I found a boy to hold my horse in front of
Gautier's cafe. Then I hastened off across the intervening blocks and
through the grounds of the White House, in which presently, having edged
through the throng in the ante-chambers, I found myself in that inane
procession of individuals who passed by in order, each to receive the
limp handshake, the mechanical bow and the perfunctory smite of
President Tyler--rather a tall, slender-limbed, active man, and of very
decent presence, although his thin, shrunken cheeks and his cold
blue-gray eye left little quality of magnetism in his personality.

It was not new to me, of course, this pageant, although it never lacked
of interest. There were in the throng representatives of all America as
it was then, a strange, crude blending of refinement and vulgarity, of
ease and poverty, of luxury and thrift. We had there merchants from
Philadelphia and New York, politicians fro