scene that occurred between us after you left."

"But," gasped the practical Gashwiler, "Simpson had given your husband
that contract,--a cool fifty thousand in his pocket!"

Mrs. Hopkinson looked as dignifiedly at Gashwiler as was consistent with
five feet three (the extra three inches being a pyramidal structure of
straw-colored hair), a frond of faint curls, a pair of laughing blue
eyes, and a small belted waist. Then she said, with a casting down of
her lids:

"You forget that my husband loves me." And for once the minx appeared to
look penitent. It was becoming; but as it had been originally practiced
in a simple white dress, relieved only with pale-blue ribbons, it was
not entirely in keeping with be-flounced lavender and rose-colored
trimmings. Yet the woman who hesitates between her moral expression and
the harmony of her dress is lost. And Mrs. Hopkinson was victrix by her
very audacity.

Mr. Gashwiler was flattered. The most dissolute man likes the appearance
of virtue. "But graces and accomplishments like yours, dear Mrs.
Hopkinson," he said oleaginously, "belong to the whole country."
Which, with something between a courtesy and a strut, he endeavored to
represent. "And I shall want to avail myself of all," he added, "in the
matter of the Castro claim. A little supper at Welcker's, a glass or two
of champagne, and a single flash of those bright eyes, and the thing is
done."

"But," said Mrs. Hopkinson, "I've promised Josiah that I would give up
all those frivolities, and although my conscience is clear, you know how
people talk! Josiah hears it. Why, only last night, at a reception at
the Patagonian Minister's, every woman in the room gossiped about me
because I led the german with him. As if a married woman, whose
husband was interested in the Government, could not be civil to the
representative of a friendly power?"

Mr. Gashwiler did not see how Mr. Hopkinson's late contract for
supplying salt pork and canned provisions to the army of the United
States should make his wife susceptible to the advances of foreign
princes; but he prudently kept that to himself. Still, not being himself
a diplomat, he could not help saying:

"But I understood that Mr. Hopkinson did not object to your interesting
yourself in this claim, and you know some of the stock--"

The lady started, and said:

"Stock! Dear Mr. Gashwiler, for Heaven's sake don't mention that hideous
name to me. Stock, I am sick of it! Have you