that when at last he reached home he woke to a sudden annoyance in the
fact that his news must be old to Laura, now, for of course Senator
Dilworthy must have already been home and told her an hour before. He
knocked at her door, but there was no answer.

"That is like the Duchess," said he. "Always cool; a body can't excite
her-can't keep her excited, anyway. Now she has gone off to sleep again,
as comfortably as if she were used to picking up a million dollars every
day or two"

Then he vent to bed. But he could not sleep; so he got up and wrote a
long, rapturous letter to Louise, and another to his mother. And he
closed both to much the same effect:

"Laura will be queen of America, now, and she will be applauded, and
honored and petted by the whole nation. Her name will be in every
one's mouth more than ever, and how they will court her and quote
her bright speeches. And mine, too, I suppose; though they do that
more already, than they really seem to deserve. Oh, the world is so
bright, now, and so cheery; the clouds are all gone, our long
struggle is ended, our, troubles are all over. Nothing can ever
make us unhappy any more. You dear faithful ones will have the
reward of your patient waiting now. How father's Wisdom is proven
at last! And how I repent me, that there have been times when I
lost faith and said, the blessing he stored up for us a tedious
generation ago was but a long-drawn curse, a blight upon us all.
But everything is well, now--we are done with poverty, sad toil,
weariness and heart-break; all the world is filled with sunshine."