a round hand, unlike her flowing style, and it was directed to a number
and street in Georgetown:--

"A Lady at Senator Dilworthy's would like to see Col. George Selby,
on business connected with the Cotton Claims. Can he call Wednesday
at three o'clock P. M.?"

On Wednesday at 3 P. M, no one of the family was likely to be in the
house except Laura.




CHAPTER XXXIX.

Col. Selby had just come to Washington, and taken lodgings in Georgetown.
His business was to get pay for some cotton that was destroyed during the
war. There were many others in Washington on the same errand, some of
them with claims as difficult to establish as his. A concert of action
was necessary, and he was not, therefore, at all surprised to receive the
note from a lady asking him to call at Senator Dilworthy's.

At a little after three on Wednesday he rang the bell of the Senator's
residence. It was a handsome mansion on the Square opposite the
President's house. The owner must be a man of great wealth, the Colonel
thought; perhaps, who knows, said he with a smile, he may have got some
of my cotton in exchange for salt and quinine after the capture of New
Orleans. As this thought passed through his mind he was looking at the
remarkable figure of the Hero of New Orleans, holding itself by main
strength from sliding off the back of the rearing bronze horse, and