so, if I had the millions of Jerry Hollowell. Jerry is going
to build a palace out on the Massachusetts Avenue extension bigger than
the White House."

"I don't want to hear anything about Hollowell."

"But he is the coming man. He represents the democratic plutocracy that
we are coming to."

All Morgan's banter couldn't shake Margaret's enjoyment of the cheerful
city. "You like it as well as anybody," she told him. And in truth he and
Mrs. Morgan dipped into every gayety that was going. "Of course I do," he
said, "for a couple of weeks. I shouldn't like to be obliged to follow it
as a steady business. Washington is a good place to take a plunge
occasionally. And then you can go home and read King Solomon with
appreciation."

Margaret had thought when she came to Washington that she should spend a
good deal of time at the Capitol, listening to the eloquence of the
Senators and Representatives, and that she should study the collections
and the Patent-office and explore all the public buildings, in which she
had such intense historical interest as a teacher in Brandon. But there
was little time for these pleasures, which weighed upon her like duties.
She did go to the Capitol once, and tired herself out tramping up and
down, and was very proud of it all, and wondered how any legislation was
ever accomplished, and was confused by the hustling about, the swinging
of doors, the swarms in the lobbies, and the racing of messengers, and
concluded unjustly that it was a big hive of whispered conference, and
bargaining, and private interviewing. Morgan asked her if she expected
that the business of sixty millions of people was going to be done with
the order and decorum of a lyceum debating society. In one of the
committee-rooms she saw Hollowell, looking at ease, and apparently an
indispensable part of the government machine. Her own husband, who had
accompanied the party, she lost presently, whisked away somewhere. He was
sought in vain afterwards, and at last Margaret came away dazed and
stunned by the noise of the wheels of the great republic in motion. She
did not try it again, and very little strolling about the departments
satisfied her. The west end claimed her--the rolling equipages, the
drawing-rooms, the dress, the vistas of evening lamps, the gay chatter in
a hundred shining houses, the exquisite dinners, the crush of the
assemblies, the full flow of the tide of fashion and of enjoyment--what
is there so good in l