"Your friend Bess," said Richard to Dorothy, later, "is a bit of a
blue-stocking, isn't she?--one of those girls who give themselves to the
dangerous practice of thinking?"

"I love her from my heart!" returned Dorothy, with a splendid
irrelevance wholly feminine; "she is a girl of gold!"

"Mr. Fopling: he's of gold, too, I take it."

"Mr. Fopling is very wealthy."

"Well, I'm glad he's something," observed Richard.

"You hate him because he spoke ill of newspapers," said Dorothy
teasingly.

"Naturally, when a giant hand is stretched forth against the tree by
which one lives, one's alarm runs away into hate," laughed Richard.

Richard, now that the _Daily Tory_ letters were winning praise, that is
to say, were being greatly applauded and condemned, began to have in
them a mightier pride than ever. Educated those years abroad, he felt
the want of an American knowledge, and started in to study government at
pointblank range. Nights he read history, mostly political, and days he
went about like a Diogenes without the lamp. He put himself in the way
of Cabinet men; and talked with Senators and Representatives concerning
congressional movements of the day.

Being quick, he made discoveries; some of them personal to himself. As
correspondent of a New York daily, those Cabinet folk and men of