into her face, and said never a word.

She insisted: "I must have this riddle answered. It suffocates me. I
should not be sad at seeing these same people at work or at play, if
they ever do play; or in a church or a lecture-room. Why do they
weigh on me like a horrid phantom here?"

"I see no riddle, Mrs. Lee. You have answered your own question;
they are neither at work nor at play."

"Then please take me home at once. I shall have hysterics. The
sight of those two suffering images at the door is too mournful to
be borne. I am dizzy with looking at these stalking figures. I don't
believe they're real.

I wish the house would take fire. I want an earthquake. I wish
some one would pinch the President, or pull his wife's hair."

Mrs. Lee did not repeat the experiment of visiting the White
House, and indeed for some time afterwards she spoke with little
enthusiasm of the presidential office. To Senator Ratcliffe she
expressed her opinions strongly. The Senator tried in vain to argue
that the people had a right to call upon their chief magistrate, and
that he was bound to receive them; this being so, there was no less
objectionable way of proceeding than the one which had been
chosen. "Who gave the people any such right?" asked Mrs.

Lee. "Where does it come from? What do they want it for? You
know better, Mr. Ratcliffe! Our chief magistrate is a citizen like
any one else. What puts it into his foolish head to cease being a