gratefully remembered by the Republic, but she had given little heed
to its public buildings and their significance. As she approached
the great white Capitol, she experienced a sudden thrill of that
historical sense which, after its awakening, dominates so actively the
large intelligence. The Capitol symbolized the greatness of the young
nation; all the famous American statesmen after the first group had
moved and made their reputations within its walls. All laws affecting
the nation came out of it, and the Judges of the Supreme Court sat
there. And of its kind there was none other in the civilized world,
had been but one other since the world began.

The historic building shed an added lustre upon Senator Burleigh; but
it was of Senator North that she thought most as she half rose in the
Victoria and scanned the long sweep. The cleverest of women cannot
class with anything like precision the man who has stamped himself
into her imagination. Betty knew that there were six men in the Senate
who ranked as equals; their quiet epoch gave them little chance to
discover latent genius other than for constructive legislation;
nevertheless she arbitrarily conceived the Capitol to-day as the great
setting for one man only; and the building and the man became one in
her imagination henceforth. The truth was that Betty, being greatly
endowed for loving and finding that all men fell short of her high
standard, was forced to seek companionship in an ideal. She had had
several loves in history, but had come to the conclusion some years
since that dead men were unsatisfactory. Since then she had fancied
mightily one or two public men on the other side, whom she had never
met; but in time they had bored or disappointed her. But here was a
conspicuous figure in her own country, appealing to her through the
powerful medium of patriotic pride; a man so much alive that he might
at any moment hold the destinies of the United States in his hands,