"Ah, that is good," the visitor responded, with evident satisfaction.

He knocked the ashes from his cigar into a tiny bronze which Mrs.
Sampson had put within his reach when he showed signs of throwing them
upon the carpet, and then plunged into a discussion of the members of
the State Legislature with whom it was possible for Mrs. Sampson to
establish an acquaintance, and whom she was likely to be able to
influence. He drew from his pocket a list of men, and with quite as
business-like an air his hostess produced a similar document from her
desk; the pair being soon deep in consultation over the schedules.

Lobbying in Massachusetts is not by the public recognized as a well-
organized business, and yet any one who desires to secure personal
influence to aid or to hinder legislation is seldom at a loss to find
people well experienced in such work. The lobby to the eyes of the
public, moreover, consists entirely of men, if one excepts the group of
foolish intriguers in favor of the vagaries of proposed law-making by
which it is supposed the distinctions of sex may be abolished. There
are in the city, however, women who by no means lack experience in
manipulating the votes of country members, and who are but too willing
to sell their services to whoever can make it to their pecuniary
interest to favor a bill.

Mrs. Amanda Welsh Sampson was extremely adroit and careful in
concealing her connection with the law-making of the State. She was in
evidence in most public places; at the theatres, the concert halls, the
County Club races, and at every fashionable entertainment to which her
cleverness could procure her admission, her conspicuous figure, made
more prominent by a certain indefinable loudness of style, a marked
dash of manner, and gowns in a taste rather daring than refined, was