a display essentially in
keeping with the doctrines which Selma felt that she stood for. She took
occasion to rejoice in Lyons's ear at the realization of her
anticipations in this respect. At the same time she was agreeably
stimulated by the belief that her wedding dress was sumptuous and
stylish, and her appearance striking. Her hair had been dressed as
elaborately as possible; she wore all her jewelry; and she carried a
bouquet of costly roses. Her wish was to regard the function as the
height of social demonstration, and she had spared no pains to make
herself effective. She had esteemed it her duty to do so both as a
Congressman's wife and as a champion of moral and democratic ideas.

The crowd was oppressive, and three times the train of her dress was
stepped on to her discomfiture. Amid the sea of faces she recognized a
few of the people she had seen at the hotel. It struck her that no one
of the women was dressed so elegantly as herself, an observation which
cheered her and yet was not without its thorn. But the music, the
lights, and the variegated movement of the scene kept her senses
absorbed and interfered with introspection, until at last they were
close to the receiving party. Selma fixed her eyes on the President,
expecting recognition. Like her husband, the President possessed a gift
of faces and the faculty of rallying all his energies to the important
task of remembering who people were. An usher asked and announced the
names, but the Chief Magistrate's perceptions were kept hard at work.
His "How do you do, Congressman Lyons? I am very glad to see you here,
Mrs. Lyons," were uttered with a smiling spontaneity, which to his own
soul meant a momentary agreeable relaxation of the nerves of memory,
resembling the easy flourish with which a gymnast engaged in lifting
heavy weights encounters a wooden dumb-bell. But though his eyes and
voice were flattering, Selma had barely completed the little bob of a
courtesy which accompanied her act of shaking hands when she discovered
that the machinery of the national custom was not to halt on their
account, and that she must proceed without being able to renew the half
flirtatious interview of the previous day. She proceeded to courtesy to
the President's wife and to the row of wives of members of the Cabinet
who were assisting. Before she could adequately observe them, she found
herself beyond and a part once more of a heterogeneous crush, the
current of which she