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 I- 
 
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 132 
 
 P2 / 
 
 CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 Professor B. S. Monroe 
 
Cornell University Library 
 PS 3507.I32P2 
 
 The patience of John Norland / 
 
 3 1924 022 356 962 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924022356962 
 
THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 
 
/ 
 
 IT IS A FACE AND A FORM TO WITCH THE HEART AND IHh 
 WISDOM OUT OF ANY ONK " 
 
The 
 Patience of John Morland 
 
 By 
 
 MARY DILLON 
 
 Author of "The Rose of Old St. Louis," "The Leader," 
 and "In Old Bellaire" 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY C. M. RELYEA 
 
 New York 
 
 Doubleday, Page & Company 
 
 1909 
 
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OP TRANSLATION 
 INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES, INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN 
 
 COPyaiGHT, 1909, BY DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 PUBLISHED, JULY, IQO^ 
 
 
TRUE FRIENDSHIP 
 
 IS BO BARE A GIFT OF THE GODS 
 
 THAT, ONCE GRANTED TO A FORTUNATE MORTAL, 
 
 IT SHOULD BE CHERISHED ABOVE 
 
 EVERT EARTHLY POSSESSION. 
 
 THIS STORY IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED 
 
 TO ONE WHO HAS PROVED HERSELF, 
 
 FOR MORE THAN THIRTY TEARS, 
 
 A LOYAL FRIEND: 
 
 E. McM. 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 I CANNOT hope that even the most superficial student 
 of American history will not recognize my heroine at a 
 glance, despite her change of name. I have made this 
 change that, while adhering closely to the truth in the 
 leading incidents of her career, I may yet allow myself 
 a little latitude for the play of imagination. 
 
 For the same reason I have changed the hero's name. I 
 know there will be many to disagree with me in my con- 
 ception of these two characters, but where there have been 
 radical differences of opinion between all the chroniclers of 
 the day and every biographer of the two, I may, perhaps, be 
 permitted a still wider divergence of interpretation. 
 And if the right to such divergence be not granted me on 
 this ground, then I claim my privilege as a writer of 
 fiction. I have conscientiously swerved not a hair's 
 breadth from the fact in writing of any incident that can 
 be claimed as history, but I confess to having taken some 
 liberties with the characters of these two, and with their 
 intimate and personal experiences, to which history would 
 lay no claim if it could, but which are the lawful domain 
 of fiction. For which I have great authority and illus- 
 trious examples in "The Three Musqueteers," "Lady 
 Rose's Daughter," "The Marriage of WilUam Ashe," 
 and a long line of equally glorious historical tales. 
 
 Mart Dillon. 
 
PEOPLE OF THE STORY 
 
 Kitty McCabe, the heroine; daughter of an Irish innkeeper, 
 
 wilful, indiscreet, but withal lovable. 
 John Morland, the hero; a youthful Senator from Tennessee, 
 
 chivalrous and long-suffering. 
 Tim McCabb, Kitty's father; the pompous and coarse-grained 
 
 landlord of "McCabe's Tavern." 
 Mrs. McCabe, Kitty's mother; a gentlewoman born and bred. 
 Will Sutherland, an impetuous Virginian; Lieutenant 
 
 on the Argus. 
 Harold Montclair, coxcomb, cad, and coward. 
 Miss Dayton, a friend of Montclair's and of the same stripe. 
 James Monroe, President of the United States in the first part 
 
 of the story. 
 John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State under Monroe and 
 
 President through part of the story. 
 Andrew Jackson, President in the latter part of the story, 
 
 and devoted champion of Kitty. 
 Henry Clay, "The Great Pacificator;" Speaker of the House 
 
 under Monroe, Secretary of State under Adams, and 
 
 always a popular idol. 
 John C. Calhoun, "The NuUifier;" Secretary of War under 
 
 Monroe, and Vice-President under Adams and Jackson; 
 
 scholar and statesman, but a mistaken propagator of two 
 
 dangerous doctrines, whom Kitty keeps out of the 
 
 Presidency. 
 Daniel Webster, the greatest orator in Congress in that or 
 
 any day. 
 Thomas Benton, Senator and statesman; slightly pompous, 
 
 })ut undeniably great. 
 
X THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 John Randolph, of Roanoke; fiery orator, master of invective, 
 
 bitter enemy of Clay. 
 Maetin Van Buken, Senator, Governor, Secretary of State; 
 
 Burr's accomplished pupil, the most skilful organizer 
 
 in American politics, arch supporter of Kitty, appointed 
 
 by Jackson as his successor. 
 Mk. Vaughan, Minister to the United States from England; 
 
 a bachelor, and staunch supporter of Kitty. 
 Baron Kkudeneh, Minister from Russia; a bachelor, and one 
 
 of Kitty's ardent champions. 
 James Buchanan, Member of Congress from Pennsylvania; 
 
 an accomplished politician. 
 WlNFiELD ScoiT, a youthful general in the army; strikingly 
 
 big, handsome, and simple hearted. 
 Robert Y. Hatne of South Carolina; eloquent opponent and 
 
 warm admirer of Webster. 
 William Wirt, illustrious Attorney-General of the United 
 
 States; as handsome as gifted. 
 Robert E. Lee, young West Point cadet. 
 Major Lewis, confidential friend and adviser to Jackson. 
 Letcher, of Kentucky, a friend of Clay's. 
 Tazewell, of Virginia, an acquaintance of Montclair's. 
 Young Laidlet, a boy friend of Kitty's. 
 Mrs. Decatur, widow of Commodore Decatur; a leader in 
 
 Washington society. 
 Mrs. Calhoun, first lady of the land under Jackson; a lovely 
 
 woman, devoted wife and mother. 
 Mrs. Madison, wife of ex-President Madison, and always a 
 
 reigning favourite in Washington. 
 Rachel, idolized wife of Jackson. 
 Mrs. Henry Clay. 
 Mrs. John Quincy Adams. 
 
 Mrs. Huygens, wife of the Minister from Holland. 
 Mr. and Mrs. Custis, of Arlington. 
 
JOHN MORLAND xi 
 
 Miss Nelue Custis, of Arlington. 
 Janet, Kitty's little daughter. 
 Emmeune, Kitty's black maid. 
 Jeff, body-servant to Senator Morland. 
 
 Place: Washington. 
 
 Time: The third decade of the last century. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 BOOK I 
 
 KITTY McCABE 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. The Doom of the Republic .... 3 
 
 II. Tall Harry of the Slashes 15 
 
 III. Mrs. Madison Makes a Prophecy ... 22 
 
 IV. Barely in Time 40 
 
 V. A Fatal Snub 57 
 
 VI. Mrs. Adams's Ball 66 
 
 VII. For Whom Kitty Was Waiting .... 89 
 
 VIII. Dinah Is Faithless 95 
 
 IX. A Tell-tale Word 103 
 
 BOOK II 
 
 THE WIDOW SUTHERLAND 
 
 I. Trouble Begins .... 
 
 II. Morland Makes Two Resolutions 
 
 III. Kitty Confesses . 
 
 IV. A Bolt from the Blue 
 V. On the Banks of the Kanawha 
 
 VI. An Arrival in Washington . 
 
 VII. Clay's Hour 
 
 VIII. Kitty's Defiance . 
 
 IX. The Flowing River . 
 
 X. On the Bluffs at Arlington . 
 
 XI. Janet's Prayer 
 
 113 
 128 
 136 
 150 
 162 
 169 
 176 
 192 
 204 
 211 
 234 
 
xiv THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XII. Morland Buys a Horse 243 
 
 XIII. A Trifle Light as Air 255 
 
 XIV. A Terrible Provocation 270 
 
 BOOK III 
 
 MISTRESS MORLAND 
 
 I. The Wooing of Kitty 289 
 
 II. In the Woods at Bladensburg .... 306 
 
 III. At Monterey 324 
 
 IV. Baron Krudener Offends Mrs. Huygens . . 345 
 V. The President Gives Kitty a Party . . .360 
 
 VI. The Dissolution of a Cabinet . . . .372 
 
 VII. Mrs. Decatur's Miniature 386 
 
 VIII. The World Well Lost 394 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 " It is a face and a form to witch the heart and 
 
 the wisdom out of any one " . . Frontispiece 
 
 FACING FAOB 
 
 " Kitty listened to a formal declaration from the 
 ardent Southerner more impassioned than she 
 had yet heard from any youthful lover " . 102 
 
 "She touched Brown Bess's sensitive flank 
 smartly with her whip and was off like the 
 wind" 266 
 
 " His face was livid . . . ' No one ever told 
 
 me you were such a dead shot ' " . . 320 
 
THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 
 
BOOK I 
 KITTY McCABE 
 
The Patience of John Morland 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE DOOM OF THE REPUBLIC 
 
 TT WAS half after four o'clock of a spring afternoon, 
 ■'• and all Washington was sitting down to dinner. 
 
 It was early spring, and through the open windows 
 of McCabe's Tavern floated the sweet odours and 
 sounds belonging to a Maryland April: the noisy song 
 of orioles flashing, flame-like, through the maples that 
 shaded the long, low building, the gentle chirp of the 
 chippies, and the monotonous call of a wood pewee mingled 
 with the fragrance of opening lilac buds and fading apple 
 blossoms. 
 
 Mr. McCabe himself was receiving his guests as they 
 entered, singly or in groups, from the Capitol. He 
 was wearing an immaculate white apron that entirely 
 covered his coat and trousers, but he was as genially 
 pompous in manner as if his apron were the ensign 
 of royalty. He greeted every arriving guest cordially, 
 yet there were shades of distinction in his manner: to 
 some he merely nodded affably, others he addressed with 
 a cordial "Howdy" and a flashing smile, while a few 
 he received with stately deference, himself conducting 
 them to their seats at the long table, covered with a 
 snowy cloth, ready set for serving, and surrounded by an 
 army of Negro waiters drawn up in motionless array. 
 
 3 
 
4 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 It was noticeable that none but men had entered the 
 room, and most of them were so absorbed in some topic 
 they were discussing that they had made but perfunctory 
 returns to McCabe's greetings. The table was nearly 
 filled now; in fact, only two places remained vacant — one 
 on either side of the host's seat at the end — and the host 
 himself was growing as nearly impatient as his care- 
 fully cultivated manner of urbane Boniface would per- 
 mit. He was evidently waiting for some one, for the 
 long hand of the tall clock in the corner of the room was 
 already on the half hour, and it was an unwritten law of 
 McCabe's Tavern that it should never cross that boun- 
 dary line and begin its ascending journey on the other 
 half of the clock's face without finding both host and 
 guest each in his appointed place. 
 
 The guests had been filling the interval of waiting by 
 a general and somewhat noisy discussion of the all- 
 absorbing topic that had been engrossing the several 
 groups on their entrance; sometimes calling questions and 
 answers from one end of the long table to the other. But 
 there was a moment of silence as the long hand rested 
 on the half, broken by an imperious Southerner's query 
 to his neighbour: 
 
 "What are we waiting for?" 
 
 "Don't you know ?" asked the other in some surprise. 
 
 The Southerner made no reply, for a commotion at 
 the door answered his query. Two men were entering, 
 and every eye was turned toward them, those sitting with 
 their backs to the door twisting in their chairs and stretch- 
 ing their necks to see the better. 
 
 The younger and handsomer of the two men had 
 stepped back a little to give precedence to the other. 
 
JOHN MORLAND 5 
 
 If the spectators had not known who was expected, or 
 recognized at once the tall soldierly figure whose face, 
 set in the stern lines of one accustomed to command, was 
 crowned by a shock of bristling white hair, they would 
 readily have perceived from Tim McCabe's manner 
 that some one of unusual distinction had entered. Never 
 had his smile been so deferential, his bow so ceremonious, 
 his tones so suave, as he took his visitor's gray beaver hat 
 and said: 
 
 "How do you do. General? We are honoured to 
 welcome you to Washington once more, sir." 
 
 In the moment of silence that had accompanied the 
 entrance of the two men and preceded Tim McCabe's 
 sonorous greeting, there had been distinctly audible, 
 uttered in harsh rasping tones: 
 
 "It is an outrage, sir! And by the Eternal he shall 
 hear from it!" 
 
 Every one who heard the words knew to what and to 
 whom they referred, and no one w,as astonished to note 
 that they were accompanied by every symptom of strong 
 excitement : the deep lines in the stem face visibly deeper, 
 the eyes from under their beetling brows flashing points 
 of fire, the lips tight drawn, and the square jaw defiantly 
 set. But at the host's greeting there was a transforma- 
 tion so sudden as to have been easily bewildering: the 
 furrows seemed to melt away from the rugged cheeks, 
 leaving them smoother and younger, the straight line 
 of the mouth dissolved into genial curves, and the eyes 
 beamed with honest cordiaHty. At that moment the 
 old soldier was no longer a rough pioneer — he was as 
 fine a specimen of the courtly gentleman as Washington 
 had often seen. 
 
6 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 "Ah, Mr. McCabe, glad to see you again, sir," he said 
 heartily, extending his hand as he spoke. "And how is 
 your wife ? I hope I may be permitted to pay my respects 
 to her." 
 
 "She is waiting to receive you, Greneral. Will you 
 take the General to Mrs. McCabe, Major Morland?' 
 addressing the younger of the two men as he spoke, and 
 waving his hand toward an open door. "And then, if 
 you will permit, General, I will not keep my guests waiting 
 longer. You will find your place ready for you at my 
 right when you return." 
 
 Major Morland conducted the General through the 
 open door their host had indicated into a Uttle parlour, 
 simply furnished, but with unusual evidences of taste 
 and refinement for a parlour in an ordinary inn. There 
 rose to meet them as they entered a woman not yet 
 past middle age, but wearing the cap and soft handker- 
 chief of a much older woman. She was singularly beauti- 
 ful and graceful, and there was a gentleness and distinction 
 in her voice and bearing hardly to have been looked for 
 in an Irish innkeeper's wife. She met the General with 
 a gracious sweetness untinged with obsequiousness, and 
 the General on his part was gallantly cordial and com- 
 plimentary, with no hint of familiarity or condescension. 
 
 Mrs. McCabe would allow them to stay but a 
 moment. 
 
 "You must go," she said. "It would break Tim's 
 heart to have you sit down to a cold dinner." 
 
 The General seemed in no hurry. 
 
 "But where is Kitty?" he remonstrated. "I haven't 
 said 'Howdy' to her yet, and I can't go without kissing 
 my little sweetheart. Unless," he added, as if dismayed 
 
JOHN MORLAND 7 
 
 by a sudden suggestion, "she 's grown too big for 
 kisses. I had forgotten that it is two years since I have 
 seen her." 
 
 "Oh, Kitty!" Mrs. McCabe gave her head a little toss 
 of half-humorous vexation. "I 'm afraid you '11 find her 
 greatly spoiled. General. She should be at home now, 
 and dressed for dinner, but she went off early in the 
 afternoon with her girl, Emmeline, and I 've no doubt 
 she 's fishing in Rock Creek and has forgotten all about 
 dinner. But there! you must not stay a minute longer," 
 and the savoury odours from the dining-room having by 
 this time penetrated to Mrs. McCabe's little parlour, 
 added a compeUing argument to hers, and the General 
 and the Major made their courteous adieus. 
 
 The ten minutes the two men had spent with Mrs. 
 McCabe had been occupied in the dining-room by 
 a semi-military ceremony of daily occurrence. Tim 
 McCabe had taken his place at the head of the table, 
 and, with every guest in his seat and the army of Negroes 
 standing motionless, their eyes upon their master, he 
 gave a signal. With military precision each Negro 
 raised a cover from the table, and holding it before him 
 turned his eyes again on his master. At a second signal 
 the Negroes marched in perfect step to a side table, 
 deposited their covers, wheeled, and marched back to 
 their places; and so in strictest drill the meal went 
 forward. 
 
 Naturally, Mr. McCabe did not like such a ceremonial 
 interfered with, and there was probably no other American 
 citizen than the one who now took his seat at his right 
 whom he would have permitted to throw his table into 
 confusion. But the uproar of greetings did away with 
 
8 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 all discipline for a time. Men rushed from their places 
 to grasp the General's hand, and for ten minutes bedlam 
 reigned. Then order was restored and the meal went 
 decorously forward. 
 
 When conversation was once more becoming general, 
 one of those maladroit men to be found in every company, 
 wishing possibly to show himself at ease in the presence 
 of the great man, piped up from the lower end of the 
 table, with a clumsy attempt at facetiousness : 
 
 "General, you are a little too late; you should have 
 been at the Capitol this morning in time to hear Clay 
 score you on your conduct of the Seminole War." 
 
 The table was aghast. 
 
 "Fools rush in " muttered the imperious Southerner, 
 
 and noting the flash of the General's eye he hastened to 
 avert the impending storm. 
 
 "I could wish you had been in time. General," he said 
 soothingly, "to have heard your friends in your defence." 
 
 But it was an unlucky word. 
 
 "Defence, sir, I need no defence!" the General fairly 
 roared, for his ire was fast rising. 
 
 The Southerner hastened to interpose: 
 
 "You are right! I inadvertently used the wrong 
 expression. I wish you might have heard the commen- 
 dations and eulogies of your friends upon your masterly 
 and unquestionable line of action in that emergency." 
 
 "Thank you, Mr. Calhoun," said the irate General, 
 easily placated, "and I hope the eloquent Secretary of 
 War, whose word carries more weight than any other 
 man's in the South, was one of the friends whom I greatly 
 regret not hearing." 
 
 "Without doubt, sir, without doubt. I could not be 
 
JOHN MORLAND 9 
 
 silent in such a cause," responded Calhoun earnestly, 
 his pallid face showing a tinge of colour and his keen, 
 unresting eyes glowing with pleasure under the stately 
 compliment of the old soldier. 
 
 He was entirely honest. He had been greatly incensed 
 at Clay's speech of censure, though possibly his^bittemess 
 was as much due to his political hatred of Clay as to his 
 admiration of Jackson. For the moment he had for- 
 gotten that only a few weeks before he had himself, in 
 Cabinet session, proposed a measure of censure on 
 Jackson's conduct of that same Seminole War. It was 
 the policy of the administration, however, to avoid arous- 
 ing the antagonism of the people by any strictures on 
 their idol, and his suggestion had been vetoed. It only 
 irritated him the more, therefore, that Clay — openly in 
 opposition to the administration on every possible point — 
 should be making capital against the administration by 
 the very weapon he had himself proposed using; and 
 in his irritation he forgot for the moment that he, least 
 of all, had a right to be either vexed with Clay or 
 pleased at Jackson's commendations of himself. 
 
 The little incident, vial apropos as it seemed, had yet 
 served its purpose. Every tongue was loosed, and the 
 topic which had been engrossing all thoughts but which 
 courtesy to the great General had prohibited all but the 
 maladroit from introducing, now became the sole topic 
 of the table. There could be but one opinion in that com- 
 pany. Clay was almost at the height of his popularity, 
 but not even he could be forgiven for criticizing the 
 country's idol, "Old Hickory." Wine was called for 
 from the bar on the opposite side of the big room, and 
 toast after toast was drunk to the hero of New Orleans, 
 
10 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 while Tim McCabe sent a boy with his own private bottle 
 of fine old Madeira to fill Mr. Calhoun's glass in token of 
 his approbation of Mr. Calhoun's sentiments. 
 
 The wines were good , the dinner was abundant 
 and deliciously cooked, and their topic was an exciting 
 one; they lingered long at the table and the level rays 
 of the rapidly sinking sun were striking across the room 
 from the western windows before the company began to 
 break up. 
 
 Calhoun and Jackson and Morland still lingered. 
 Calhoun had gotten away from Clay's speech, and was 
 expounding to Jackson his views of the tariff, which 
 did not entirely agree with Jackson's, but in which he 
 was greatly interested. Calhoun had hopes of convinc- 
 ing him, and was deeply absorbed in his own line of 
 reasoning, his pale, scholarly face, coal-black hair, and 
 intense eyes lighted up weirdly by the western sun. He 
 was in the midst of a close argument, with an extended 
 forefinger laying down each carefully considered point, 
 when he was rudely interrupted. The door was flung open 
 and a girl of fourteen or fifteen rushed in, followed slowly 
 and hesitatingly by a young negress a year or two older. 
 
 "\Miere is General Jackson? I want to see him!" 
 the girl called in a high, musical voice as she stopped a 
 moment just inside the door. Then, catching a glimpse 
 of the General, without waiting for an answer, she ran 
 forward, both arms outstretched, and flung herself on 
 the old soldier's neck. 
 
 The General was embarrassed. He returned the 
 caress, of course, but this tall slip of a girl was not the little 
 Kitty of his remembrance whom he had held upon his 
 knee and kissed and teased at his pleasure. 
 
JOHN MORLAND 11 
 
 "Hoity-toity, what have we here!" he exclaimed, as 
 he gently tried to disengage the clinging arms. "This 
 is n't my Kitty. My Kitty was a little girl and not a 
 beautiful young lady." 
 
 But not until her father spoke did Kitty relax her 
 clasp. He had been too much shocked for a moment 
 to find his voice. It was not at the freedom of Kitty's 
 manners, however, that he was shocked — she was still, to 
 her father, but a child — but that she should appear in such 
 a presence in such array! Her chestnut curls were tum- 
 bling all over her head in picturesque but untidy confusion, 
 her hands and her face were far from clean, and her 
 short print gown was torn and drabbled. But, most 
 horrible of all, she was barefooted, and her little feet, 
 slender and daintily arched, were muddy! That a child 
 of Tim McCabe, the immaculate, should so disgrace him, 
 and that Kitty, of whose beauty he was as vain as a 
 peacock, should appear before such company not suitably 
 adorned, was more than he could stand. He spoke sternly, 
 in tones of authority to which his spoiled daughter was 
 little accustomed: 
 
 "Kitty! Go to your room at once! And never let me 
 know of your presenting yourself in the dining-room again 
 in such a plight." 
 
 And then, still more harshly to the Negress: 
 
 "Emmeline, what do you mean by allowing your 
 mistress to get into such a condition and permitting her 
 to come in here to make a spectacle of herself! Go dress 
 your mistress, and then report to Mr. Jenkins." 
 
 Since Tim McCabe owned no plantation, Mr. Jenkins 
 could hardly be called an overseer, but he was a factotum 
 whose numerous duties included the one of seeing that 
 
12 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 the Negro servants were properly disciplined. Emmeline 
 knew what being ordered to report to him meant, and 
 she began to whimper: 
 
 "I coulden' help it, Mars Tim, 'deed I coulden'. I tried 
 to keep Miss Kate from comin' in hyer, but she jes would 
 come." Ard then, bursting into terrified sobs: 
 
 "Please Marse Tim, don' have Emmehne whipped!" 
 
 Tim McCabe was not a hard master, and he might have 
 condoned a slight offence to Emmeline's pathetic pleading, 
 but this seemed to him no slight offence, and he was 
 in the act of ordering her at once to Mr. Jenkins when he 
 was stopped by Kitty. 
 
 At her father's first words her arms had slipped from 
 the General's neck and her eyes dropped abashed — 
 until then she had not once thought of her appearance. 
 But at his threat to Emmeline she lifted her head. Her 
 eyes were a warm Irish gray with long, black, curling 
 lashes, and usually they were dancing with glee. Now they 
 were cold as steel with sparks of fire flashing from them 
 as if the steel had struck flint. 
 
 "Father!" she said, and Tim McCabe visibly quailed 
 at the sound of her icy voice, "you cannot have Emmeline 
 whipped; she belongs to me. And if Mr. Jenkins dares 
 to touch her I will horsewhip him myself in front of the 
 Capitol!" 
 
 Tim McCabe stood in such awe of his daughter 
 when, as rarely happened, she displayed her towering 
 temper, that he had no doubt she would find some 
 means of carrying out her threat, and he hastened 
 to retract. 
 
 "Emmeline," he said, with what dignity he could 
 command, "your young mistress intercedes for you; 
 
JOHN MORLAND 13 
 
 you will not be whipped this time, but see hereafter that 
 you take better care of your charge." 
 
 " Come, Emmeline," said Kitty, seizing the girl's hand 
 and beginning hastily to drag her away. Her heroic 
 mood, now that there was no longer any need for it, was 
 fast giving way to embarrassment, with waves of colour 
 putting out the fire in her eyes and drenching the lovely 
 Irish roses and lilies that bloomed in her cheeks. But 
 Morland put out a hand and stopped her as she passed 
 him. 
 
 "Kitty," he whispered, "you were quite right to save 
 Emmeline that whipping, and I was proud of you. But 
 it was your fault, you Imow, and try not to get her into 
 trouble again." 
 
 He patted her hand as he spoke, as he would have 
 patted the hand of any child to whom he wished to show 
 approbation. Kitty did' not know whether to be pleased 
 or angry. She stopped a moment, her colour coming 
 and going and one bare foot twisting itself nervously 
 around the other. Then, with a toss of her head, as 
 much as to say, " It is none of your business, sir ! " she 
 seized Emmeline's hand again and the two hurried away. 
 
 Mr. Calhoun had not liked having his argument 
 interrupted. Through the little scene he had main- 
 tained a sardonic smile. Now, as the two girls passed 
 through the open doorway into Mrs. McCabe's parlour, 
 he said brusquely : 
 
 "You will ruin that girl, McCabe! You never ought 
 to let her come into this dining-room where all the men 
 pet her and flatter her and turn her silly little head. The 
 way she twists you around her little finger shows she 's 
 already a spoiled child!" 
 
14 THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 
 
 "Not at all spoiled, sir! She is a very sweet and lovely 
 child," interrupted General Jackson hotly. 
 
 "And with the making of a noble woman," added 
 Morland earnestly. 
 
 It was a prophetic scene. Just the attitude the three 
 men had taken in it was to be their attitude through the 
 years of struggle that lay before the little Kitty when, 
 according to the historians, she was to be the original 
 cause of all the weal or woe that should befall the country 
 in the next fifty years. To her they attributed the revo- 
 lution of the Constitution, the centralization and consoli- 
 dation of the Government, the abolition of slavery, and 
 the precipitation of the land into the dreadful throes of 
 civil war. No wonder that her biographers of the last 
 century gloomily entitled her "The Doom of the 
 Republic"! 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 TALL HARRY OF THE SLASHES 
 
 GENERAL JACKSON and Major Morland had 
 gone for a walk through the spring twilight up 
 the long and straggling avenue to the White House, a 
 mile away. General Jackson thought it his duty to pay 
 his respects to President and Mrs. Monroe immediately 
 upon his arrival, and with him to think of a duty was to 
 perform it. 
 
 They could hardly have gotten well down from Capitol 
 Hill when a man presented himself at McCabe's inquiring 
 for General Jackson. It was plainly discernible from 
 Tim McCabe's greeting that this, too, was a man of 
 distinction. He was taller than Jackson; indeed, among 
 a race of men over the average in height he was noticeably 
 tall. His face was not so strongly lined as the old General's, 
 and only a pair of wonderful eyes redeemed it from being 
 almost commonplace, while his manner of returning 
 McCabe's greeting was a fine blending of good-natured 
 condescension and native dignity. 
 
 "Not at home!" He scowled quickly, with no 
 attempt at concealing his impatience as he repeated 
 McCabe's words, but the scowl cleared away in a 
 moment, and the smile that followed wonderfully 
 illuminated the plain face and gave a clue to the man's 
 power with men. 
 
 "Oh, well, it does n't matter, I reckon," he added, "it 's 
 
 15 
 
16 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 all in a lifetime. Perhaps it will do as well if I talk to 
 your wife. Can I see her, Tim?" 
 
 In his soul he knew it did matter, though he could 
 hardly have foreseen how much. A few minutes later 
 he was saying to Mrs. McCabe: 
 
 "You must make my peace with him, madam. You 
 can do more with the old bear than anyone I know. Tell 
 him that my speech was entirely impersonal — criticizing 
 the conduct of public affairs — but that for him 
 individually I have now, as always, only the highest 
 regard." 
 
 Mrs. McCabe shook her head discouragingly. 
 
 "I am afraid nothing either of us could say will do 
 any good, Harry. He is a vindictive 'old bear,' if that 
 is what you are of a mind to call him, though, also, he is 
 a very dear and lovable one if you will only stroke his 
 fur the right way. You know the Seminole War is a very 
 tender point with him — did you have to make that 
 speech, Harry? Why couldn't you have let it alone?" 
 
 "I am inexpressibly shocked," Clay began gaily, "to 
 find my dear 'Mother McCabe' counselling such a pusil- 
 lanimous course. I should rather have expected to hear 
 her say, 'If duty calls, respond to her summons fearless 
 of consequence!' " 
 
 And then, with a quick change to the dry drollery of 
 manner natural to him: 
 
 "Besides, dear madam, you have lived long enough in 
 Washington to know that a politician must have some 
 grievances to air if he would keep himself before the people. 
 How else could he maintain his reputation as a 
 statesman ! " 
 
 But Mrs. McCabe was not in a mood to respond to 
 
JOHN MORLAND 17 
 
 his raillery. It seemed to her too' serious a matter for 
 trifling, and she shook her head once more. 
 
 "You say that last because you think I will not believe 
 it, Harry, but there is more truth in it than you would care 
 to own. I have lived long enough in Washington to know 
 that politicians are always seeking an issue of some kind 
 out of which they may make political capital, and I have 
 lived here long enough to see their little ships of state go 
 down one after another, foundering on the very rocks they 
 have themselves planted in the roadstead for the obstruc- 
 tion of their enemies." 
 
 Clay's air of gay flippancy dropped from him like a 
 garment; he was serious enough now, and his voice took 
 on that rare musical quality to whose persuasive power no 
 listener could be deaf. 
 
 "Ah, Mother McCabe," he said wistfully, "who 
 made you such a seer ? You have probed me to the quick 
 and pierced the sham that I was trying to make myself 
 believe was earnest. It comes to be second nature to us 
 politicians always to be hunting up some weapon with 
 which to fight either for or against the Administration. 
 People accuse me of being just now in opposition, all 
 because Adams was made Secretary of State instead of 
 me. I wonder if the people are right ? I wonder if they 
 know me better than I know myself? You have been 
 my steadfast friend, counsellor, and mentor ever since 
 my earliest Washington days, when I used to make my 
 home with you, and you often scolded me well for my 
 wild ways. You know me better than any one in Wash- 
 ington knows me. Do you believe that I am actuated by 
 spite in my course in the House, just because I was not 
 offered the portfolio of State ?" 
 
18 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 Mrs. McCabe was a very remarkable woman — the 
 attitude of a man of Clay's calibre toward her proved 
 that, and Clay was not the only one. Just as truly as 
 Madam Recamier and Madame de Stael held their 
 salons in Paris did this beautiful wife of an Irish 
 innkeeper hold her salon in the little parlour opening 
 out of the dining-hall of McCabe's Tavern. Statesmen 
 of both parties, Federalists and Republicans — or Demo- 
 crats, as they were interchangeably called — sought her 
 to talk over with her the events of the hour; either to 
 be confirmed in their own point of view or to gain a new 
 light on it from her clearer spiritual insight. Every man 
 implicitly trusted her, and perhaps more state secrets 
 were confided to her by members of both parties than to 
 any woman who has ever reigned in Washington court 
 circles — always excepting the peerless Dolly Madison. 
 It may have been that with her, as with Clay, a wonderful 
 voice, attuned to express musically every emotion of the 
 heart, was the power that moved men to confide in her 
 and seek her advice; but it was also a rare endowment 
 of mental breadth and keenness, with a clearness and 
 spiritual purity of vision, that made the advice worth 
 seeking. 
 
 McCabe's was a favourite boarding-place for the 
 faster set — men who had left their wives at home, partly 
 because there was no suitable place in Washington to 
 which to bring them and partly because they could not 
 afford to bring them, since many of the Congressmen of 
 that early day had no private fortunes and were entirely 
 dependent upon the ridiculously small stipend the country 
 allowed them. But in that fast set were to be found some 
 of the most brilliant minds of the country, and Harry Clay, 
 
JOHN MORLAND 19 
 
 the most brilliant of them all, had been their recognized 
 leader as he came up year after year from Kentucky to 
 make his home with the congenial set at McCabe's. 
 
 He no longer made his home there. Perhaps, since 
 his experience as Peace Commissioner at Ghent and his 
 familiarity with the salons of Paris and the drawing-rooms 
 of London, he preferred a more dignified manner of 
 living; or perhaps he thought his Presidential aspirations 
 demanded it. Be that as it may, he now brought Mrs. 
 Clay with him to Washington, and had found quarters 
 for them both at a boarding-house not so exclusively for 
 men as McCabe's. But he had not in the least altered 
 in his friendliness for Mrs. McCabe. He still sought 
 her frequently when he thought he needed the stimulus, 
 either moral or intellectual, she was sure to give him. 
 
 Now, as Mrs. McCabe answered his last speech, there 
 was a little tremor in her soft voice and a wistfulness 
 in her sweet blue eyes. This brilliant statesman would 
 always be just "one of her boys" to her. 
 
 " Ah, Harry, Harry," she said, " I am afraid the people 
 are not entirely wrong. And it 's not quite worthy of 
 you, you know, and not at all wise. Of course, making 
 Adams Secretary of State put him in the line of succession 
 but all the more should you keep on friendly terms with 
 him. For if he is to be the next President, then who is so 
 obviously Kis Secretary of State — unless you antagonize 
 him — as yourself ? And there you are — in the direct 
 line — heir-presumptive! But whatever you do to the 
 Administration, I wish you would let 'Old Hickory' alone; 
 for in fighting against him you antagonize a greater than 
 the Administration ; you antagonize the people ! The Semi- 
 nole War is over, and no one doubts that General Jackson 
 
20 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 acted as he believed to be right, and his mistakes, if he 
 made any, were of the head and not of the heart. Much 
 should be forgiven to the old chief who won us such laurels 
 at New Orleans, and any strictures of his conduct come 
 with a peculiarly ill grace from a framer of the Treaty of 
 Ghent! Without the victory of New Orleans that treaty 
 would, have been very ill received at home and would have 
 put the country in a very unenviable position abroad." 
 
 Clay listened to this long speech with varying 
 emotions mirroring themselves in his expressive eyest 
 At first there had been a little blue spark of anger that 
 quickly paled to apprehension as he recognized the 
 unwisdom of his course so clearly put to him; but at the 
 last there was a generous glow of admiration as he recalled 
 how his heart had swelled with patriotic pride at the 
 glorious news of the victory of New Orleans — the news 
 that alone had reconciled him to the Treaty of Ghent he 
 had been so unwilling to sign, and had sent him with a 
 good heart from Paris to London to meet the commission 
 and decide on the commercial terms of the treaty. He 
 could meet the haughty Briton with a hauteur as great 
 since that glorious news, and the remembrance of the 
 load that rolled from his heart when he heard it sent a 
 warm glow through him now. 
 
 "Well," he said gaily, "you, no doubt, know that they 
 downed my resolution, one hundred and fifty to sixty- 
 nine, and I believe I am glad of it. I certainly owe the 
 old General a debt of gratitude if any one does. But 
 the trouble is, I could never make him understand my 
 feeling toward him, and I rely upon you to do it for me. 
 He is like the rest of us — he will listen to you when he will 
 listen to no one else." 
 
JOHN MORLAND 21 
 
 He was on his feet, ready to take his leave, and with a 
 courtliness and grace natural to him, and that well became 
 him, he bent low over Mrs. McCabe's hand. 
 
 " 'In thy orisons be all my sins remembered,' fair 
 lady," he said, with a touch of real earnestness; and then, 
 as he lifted his head, with the dash and sparkle that 
 endeared him to so many hearts, he added : 
 
 " I 'm not sure I '11 mind you about letting the Adminis- 
 tration alone. I must have my fun, you know, and old 
 Adams is a stick! By the way, I 'm due for a game at 
 Poindexter's — just add a little postscript to your orisons 
 that I may win — I 'm terribly hard up! " 
 
 He went off laughing, leaving Mrs. McCabe to smile 
 and sigh, half amused and half mournful, as she recalled 
 the sins and the graces of "Tall Harry of the Slashes." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 MRS. MADISON MAKES A PROPHECY 
 
 MRS. McCABE did not see Jackson until the next 
 day, and then it was as she had feared: nothing 
 that she could say made any impression on the irate 
 General. Indeed, the fact that Clay had called seemed 
 but to infuriate him the more. 
 
 "The insolent puppy! How dared he call on me!" 
 he exclaimed. "No, madam, I shall not return his call, 
 and he will find that it was a bad day's work for him when 
 he made that speech in the House!" 
 
 Mrs. McCabe did her best, but for once her wiles were 
 powerless, and she finally gave it up with a sigh for Clay. 
 Either her naturally clear judgment or her woman's 
 intuition assured her that it had indeed been a bad busi- 
 ness for Clay, and her heart was very tender toward the 
 brilliant Kentuckian. 
 
 But she had other cares engrossing her besides the 
 political ones of her friends. Kitty's dancing school was 
 to give its closing exhibition at Brown's Hotel in Greorge- 
 town, and Mrs. Madison, up from Montpelier for a Httle 
 visit, was to crown the prettiest girl and the best dancer. 
 Mrs. McCabe was as proud of her pretty and graceful 
 daughter as any fond mother could be; questions of State 
 might interest her leisure hours, but the real business 
 of life for her was Kitty. 
 
 And a very absorbing and very anxious but, taking it 
 
 22 
 
THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 23 
 
 altogether, a very delightful business she found it. Now 
 for days her occupation had been Kitty's dress for the 
 occasion, which Mrs. McCabe had made almost entirely 
 herself. It was a copy of one worn by one of the Phila- 
 delphia Miss Chews visiting the Masons at their home on 
 Analostan Island. Mrs. McCabe was not always invited 
 to the great Washington parties, but sometimes she was, 
 and at this one her quick eye had taken in every detail 
 of Ann Chew's pretty dress with the mental determina- 
 tion that Kitty's first party dress should be an exact copy 
 of it. 
 
 There is a picture extant of Kitty at this age, by Mal- 
 bone, it is claimed, though of that I am not quite sure. I 
 think it is far more likely to have been by Charles King, 
 who was a resident of Washington at the time, and 
 greatly in demand as a painter of portraits by day and a 
 delightful dinner or ball guest in the evening. The 
 description left us of Ann Chew's historic dress is of a 
 simple book-muslin frock, the full infant waist ending 
 just under the arms, and the scanty skirt trimmed round 
 with three rows of bobbinet gathered through the middle, 
 and short enough to show the trim ankles in thin white 
 silk stockings crossed by rose ribbon lacings that fastened 
 on the little high-heeled slippers. 
 
 In just such a dress does the artist paint the budding 
 Kitty, the short sleeves and infinitesimal waist displaying 
 the dimpled arms and slender, graceful neck with its youth- 
 ful curves, so appealing and in such contrast to the maturer 
 charms of her later pictures. Her chestnut curls are 
 caught up, one might think for the first time, so youth- 
 ful is the face, by a high tortoise-shell comb showing the 
 dainty poise of the head; the roguish eyes, fringed with 
 
24 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 their saucy, curling lashes, are brimming with laughter, 
 while the curves of the beautiful mouth struggle to look 
 demure. It is a face and a form to witch the heart and 
 the wisdom out of any one; and wise as Mrs. McCabe 
 was for others, she was not always wise for Kitty, else 
 would she not have dressed up the child at that tender age 
 in the fashion of a full-fledged belle. 
 
 In just such a dress did Kitty, at five o'clock of the 
 afternoon that followed her dishevelled entrance into the 
 dining-hall, waltz gaily into the same hall, curtseying and 
 practising her steps, and greeted vrith admiring shouts 
 from the long table. 
 
 It is strange that Mrs. McCabe should have per- 
 mitted her fifteen-year-old daughter to come into this 
 roomful of men displaying all the airs and graces of 
 an opera dancer, but perhaps she was powerless to 
 prevent her, for Kitty was sometimes more than her 
 gentle mother could manage. Or, what is quite as likely, 
 her mother's vanity may have betrayed her judgment — 
 she could not quite deny herself the gratification of 
 seeing others admire what was to her the most beautiful 
 thing on earth. Yet, as the admiration began to take the 
 form of loud compliment and comment, some of it was 
 too coarse to suit Mrs. McCabe's sensitive ears, and 
 brought her to her senses with a shock. It did not dis- 
 turb Kitty's father: Tim McCabe was frankly vain of his 
 child and good-naturedly obtuse as long as the comments 
 bestowed were sufficiently complimentary. Neither was 
 the old General disturbed : his was the innocent heart of a 
 child, and he was as pleased as Tim at the admiration 
 his pretty pet excited. Mr. Calhoun glanced at her and 
 then glanced quickly away. It offended his ideas of 
 
JOHN MORLAND 25 
 
 propriety to see a young girl so free among so many men ; 
 but he had expressed himself once to McCabe — he 
 would not trouble himself again. 
 
 Only Morland showed his displeasure. If her father 
 had not been present he would have taken it upon 
 himself to send Kitty from the room. He had been so 
 intimately a member of the family that he felt himself 
 privileged in many ways, and he was very sensitive where 
 Kitty was concerned. He was just about deciding that, 
 Tim McCabe or not, he would have to put an end 
 to it, for Kitty, growing more excited, as she danced, 
 at the applause and praise showered upon her, was 
 now beginning to return some of the speeches of the 
 men with shrill-voiced repartee. Her wit was not of 
 the most brilliant order at that age, but perhaps it 
 was all that could be expected of a child, and harmless 
 enough if one were a trifle thick-skinned as to the grace 
 of modesty. 
 
 "Kitty," called from the lower end of the table the same 
 loud-voiced man who had made the maladroit speech 
 to General Jackson on the day before, "will you dance 
 with me at the President's levee to-morrow night? I 
 think we 'd make a fine-looking couple, and all the dandies 
 in tovra would be envying me." 
 
 Kitty stayed her steps and flung him a retort over her 
 shoulder: 
 
 "Thank you," she said saucily, "but if your dancing 
 equals your assurance I would have all the belles envying 
 me and that would be too much honour." 
 
 Her childish sally was greeted with roars of laughter 
 from some of the men, who cared less for Kitty than for 
 their own amusement, but Morland frowned heavily 
 
26 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 and would have intervened but Mrs. McCabe spared him 
 the necessity. 
 
 It was seldom indeed that Mrs. McCabe appeared in 
 that dining-room. Some of the men at the table had never 
 seen her, and they were all struck dumb when they sud- 
 denly saw her standing in the door of her parlour looking 
 more than usually lovely, radiant as a queen in her dress 
 of pearl-gray satin, her beautiful arms and neck bare, for 
 she too was dressed for the party at Brown's. But beautiful 
 as she looked, she was also looking very stern, and her 
 sweet blue eyes were flashing in a way to strike awe to the 
 heart of every beholder. 
 
 "Kitty!" she called imperatively. 
 
 Kitty was in the very act of curtseying, ready no doubt to 
 begin her dance again. She drew herself up at the sound 
 of the voice with its ring of command, and stood looking 
 at her mother, pouting, and half determined not to heed 
 her. Morland probably saw her incipient rebellion, and 
 his admiration for the mother and his fondness for 
 the child made him forget the proprieties, and that if 
 any oneftnterfered it was not his place, but Tim McCabe's. 
 He spoke hastily and almost roughly: 
 
 "Kitty! go to your mother at on'ce!" he said. 
 
 Kitty looked up at him, too astonished for the moment 
 to have any other sensation. Morland had always 
 made such a pet of her, it was the first time she had ever 
 heard anything but praise from his lips. She was inclined 
 at first to resent his "interference," but as she glanced 
 at him something in his eyes made her own drop, her 
 chin quivered, and scarlet with confusion and a sudden 
 sense of shame, she ran to her mother and threw herself 
 into her arms. 
 
JOHN MORLAND 27 
 
 Mrs. McCabe led Kitty back into her little parlour, and 
 in a few minutes the Royal George thundered up to the 
 door, and Mrs. McCabe and Kitty, with light shawls 
 covering their pretty dresses, passed through the dining- 
 room to take their places in it. Morland rose from 
 his place at the table and joined them, merely to assist 
 in putting them into the coach, the others thought, but 
 through the broad open window they saw him enter the 
 coach and take his place beside Mrs. McCabe. No 
 doubt he had been invited to Brown's, or perhaps he was 
 going without an invitation. It is possible that he had 
 concluded Kitty needed a sterner guardian than her 
 mother was likely to be, for it had suddenly dawned 
 upon most of the men at that table that Kitty was 
 no longer the child they had been in the habit of 
 considering her. 
 
 I like to think of that pleasant ride in the lumbering 
 old coach on that lovely spring evening. The road they 
 took is now one of the most beautiful avenues in the 
 world, lined with stately buildings and, at the hour when 
 the little party of three set out for Georgetown, fotir miles 
 away, sure to be crowded with fine carriages filled with 
 beautiful women and famous men rolling smoothly over 
 the asphalt. 
 
 But the magnificent avenue was only a country road 
 then, with a few fine houses scattered at long intervals, 
 like "The Octagon" and "The Van Ness Mansion" on 
 the flats and, in place of the asphalt, abounding in deep 
 ruts and veritable mudholes in the spring of the year, 
 where a less skilful driver than old Caesar of the Royal 
 George might easily have come to grief. Yet there are 
 always compensations, and I sometimes think I would 
 
28 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 gladly exchange all the glittering magnificence of the 
 avenue to-day for a whiif of the sweet country air laden 
 with the fragrance of lilacs and apple blossoms, and the 
 evening song of the thrush and the meadow lark of eighty 
 years ago. 
 
 But Kitty paid little heed to meadow lark or apple 
 blossoms, though she was wearing a dainty little wreath 
 of the pink and white blooms set coquettishly askew on 
 her chestnut curls. The coach made at least a dozen 
 stops on its westward route to Georgetown, and at each 
 stop more gay young people entered, girls and boys 
 alike greeting Kitty with lively expressions of delight. 
 Somehow the boys had a way of gathering close around 
 Kitty that would have reminded you of the way iron 
 filings will fly to the end of a magnet if you introduce it 
 among them, and it was soon plain the other girls did 
 not quite like being deserted, and no longer looked on 
 Kitty with delight. 
 
 But Kitty did not mind the coldness and averted looks 
 of the girls; she was in her element when she was the 
 centre of a circle of boys, keeping them all hanging on her 
 words while they greeted every sally of her girlish wit with 
 shouts of boyish laughter. The child was certainly 
 mother to the woman, and every incident of Kitty's life 
 at this period seemed but a forecast of her brilliant but 
 troubled future, with men her slaves and women her 
 cold and dangerous critics. The shadows of coming 
 events were already trooping before and gathering around 
 Kitty in dark and threatening masses. 
 
 It troubled Mrs. McCabe not a little, and Morland 
 almost as much, to see the girl using all kinds of coquettish 
 wiles to keep her circle of admirers close bound under 
 
JOHN MORLAND 29 
 
 her spell and prevent their return to their proper places. 
 But there seemed no way to interfere in the public stage- 
 coach without calling still greater attention to Kitty's 
 preeminence, and Mrs. McCabe turned to Morland 
 with a half sigh: 
 
 "What am I to do with her?" 
 
 "I would to heaven I knew ma'am!" responded 
 Morland so fervently and so gloomily that Mrs. McCabe 
 regarded him with some surprise. It had not appeared 
 to her so serious a matter as he seemed to find it; and she 
 looked across at Kitty with a little worried frown between 
 her beautiful eyes, and a half resolve to call her away from 
 the circle of admiring boys and make her take her place 
 between Morland and herself. 
 
 But what she saw when she looked at Kitty was so 
 unexpected that if she had intended to summon her to 
 her side the words died on her lips. The boys were all 
 hastily slinking back to their seats with a strangely cowed 
 air, and Kitty, no longer shaking her curls saucily, was 
 looking indescribably gentle and charmingly subdued, 
 with her curling lashes on her cheeks where the rich 
 colour was coming and going. 
 
 The coach had just rumbled noisily over the wooden 
 bridge crossing Goose Creek, the little stream that the fond 
 fancy of the early settlers had dubbed the Tiber, as they 
 called the city itself Rome, since they saw it, in their proud 
 dreams, the future mistress of the world. The coach 
 had slowed up a minute on the farther side of the creek 
 without coming to a full stop, and a youth a few years 
 older than most of the boys in the coach had swung him- 
 self aboard and was now calmly advancing toward Kitty 
 with the air of one taking his rightful place. He was 
 
30 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 a good-looking youth, not strikingly handsome, but it was 
 no doubt his mannish air and the slight shadow on his 
 upper lip that had cowed the boys and, for the moment, 
 subdued Kitty. Only for the moment, however; she was 
 soon all dimpling smiles and coquettish airs and graces 
 again, with the difference that a certain shyness mingled 
 with her coquetry, making her altogether adorable. 
 Mrs. McCabe began now to be almost as worried as 
 Morland had seemed to be. Her former uneasiness had 
 been only lest Kitty should make herself more con- 
 spicuous than a well-bred child should in a public vehicle; 
 but there was something of the self-consciousness of the 
 budding woman in Kitty's manner now that vaguely 
 alarmed her mother. 
 
 There was no bridge at that day across beautiful 
 Rock Creek — the dividing line between Washington 
 proper and Georgetown, and a favourite spot with the 
 young people for picnics " — and sometimes in the spring of 
 the year the ford was deep and dangerous. The water was 
 high and running swiftly on that warm April evening, 
 and as the horses began to step cautiously down the 
 incline leading to the ford, eyeing the rushing waters 
 distrustfully, Mrs. McCabe looked anxious. But Caesar 
 was a careful driver, and although the water was swirling 
 over the hubs and threatening to enter the body of the 
 coach, all went well until they were quite in mid-stream; 
 then one wheel sank in a rut newly worn by the rushing 
 waters, and the coach lurched suddenly. 
 
 The boys and girls screamed more from enjoyment than 
 fear when they found themselves in a huddled jumble in 
 the middle of the coach, but Mrs. McCabe was frightened, 
 and in clutching Morland to save herself from falling 
 
JOHN MORLAND 31 
 
 missed seeing young Montclair throw his arm around 
 Kitty and hold her close for a moment, while the brilliant 
 colour that flamed in Kitty's cheeks was anything but the 
 pallor of fear. It had not escaped Morland's keen 
 glance, however, and as the horses pulled the heavy 
 coach out of the rut and climbed the farther bank, and 
 they wound slowly up through the lovely evening air 
 toward Georgetown Heights, he kept his eyes on Mont- 
 clair with the evident intention of letting the young 
 fellow know that he was under observation. 
 
 Nor did he relax his surveillance after reaching Brown's, 
 where Mr. Brown himself received them with a courtesy 
 even statelier than Tim McCabe's. But once within 
 the ball-room Mrs. McCabe seemed to feel that there was 
 safety in numbers, and let her anxiety be dissipated in the 
 pleasure she found in watching the admiration Kitty 
 excited. She herself was the centre of an admiring group 
 of the older people, fathers and mothers who were present 
 to chaperon sons and daughters, for her beauty and her 
 grace, combined with the gentleness and the amiability 
 of her manner and the brilliancy of her conversation, 
 made her always the centre of a charmed circle on the 
 rare occasions when she ventured from home. It was 
 common rumour that Mrs. McCabe was the daughter 
 of an English gentleman, who had made this unsuitable 
 marriage with a man of her husband's coarser and com- 
 moner clay, probably won by the Irishman's soft tongue 
 when he was a younger and handsomer man and she but 
 a silly schoolgirl, too ignorant of the world to know what 
 she was doing. 
 
 But beautiful as she was, and more charming than 
 beautiful, Morland had eyes for the daughter rather 
 
32 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 than for the mother on this evening. Amid a throng 
 of lovely girls — and there were many in that assembly 
 just budding into the famous beauties of their day — 
 there were none that could compare with Kitty for beauty 
 or grace. A creature all fire and light, all sparkle and 
 glow, she floated through the mazes of the dance light 
 as a winged fluff of thistledown, and so sought after as 
 partner by the boys that young Montclair had only a 
 chance to dance with her twice. This was a great relief 
 to Mrs. McCabe, who thought she need feel no further 
 anxiety on the score of that young lady-killer, and might 
 with a light heart enjoy Kitty's triumphs; triumphs which 
 she was enjoying so keenly that it was sometimes difficult 
 to keep her thoughts sufficiently undistracted to properly 
 control and entertain her own circle of admirers. 
 
 It was not as great a relief to Morland as it would have 
 been had he not overheard a word or two between young 
 Montclair and Kitty. Once, as they circled by him, 
 he heard the boy say: "To-morrow night, half-past 
 eleven." The first words might not have attracted his 
 attention, but the unusual hour for making an engagement 
 aroused his suspicions and he kept a keen watch, not 
 scrupling to play the eavesdropper as far as he was able. 
 Nothing rewarded his efforts, however. For the rest of 
 the dance Kitty and Montclair were both preternaturally 
 silent for them. If any words were exchanged between 
 them they were in so low a murmur that no ears, not the 
 keenest nor the most alert, could catch them. 
 
 Mrs. Madison, stately as a queen in her trailing robes, 
 ermine-trimmed, and her rich turban with its nodding 
 plumes, was circling about the room, stopping for a 
 moment to chat with the various groups of chaperons 
 
JOHN MORLAND 33 
 
 and spectators, and carrying with her in her progress 
 from one group to another the little court that always 
 followed in her train. Now she stopped for a moment 
 beside Mrs. McCabe. 
 
 "Why has no one ever told me that you had such a 
 radiantly beautiful daughter, Mrs. McCabe? And 
 where have you kept her hid all the years we were in the 
 White House?" she asked graciously. 
 
 Mrs. McCabe's heart could not have beat with a 
 quicker throb of triumph had this been indeed a royal 
 lady addressing her. She would have liked to use, in 
 replying to her, the title Dolly Madison's friends often 
 applied to her in jest — "Your Majesty." But she 
 hardly felt on sufficiently intimate terms for such a 
 liberty. 
 
 "It is very good of you, Mrs. Madison, to say such 
 kind things of my little Kitty," she said, as sedately as 
 possible, trying to keep the tremor of delight and the 
 sparkle of triumph out of voice aiid eye. "She is only 
 just out of pinafores, and so if you have ever seen her 
 when you were living in Washington it was probably 
 as a barefoot child making mud pies in the gutter, and 
 you could not be supposed to know whether she was 
 pretty or ugly." 
 
 "Just out of pinafores, is she!" responded Mrs. 
 Madison. "Well, I predict a great future for her." 
 
 She turned to look at Kitty, who, at the head of the 
 long hall, was at that moment making a stately curtsey 
 to her partner. 
 
 "And just look at the little minx this minute," she 
 added vivaciously. "She 's as graceful as she is beauti- 
 ful, and has all the airs of a society queen. Oh, I tell 
 
34 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 you, young dandies," shaking her head at her admiring 
 train, most of whom were already well grizzled, "you '11 
 have to beware of Kitty McCabe; she 's going to be a 
 dangerous young woman!" 
 
 Mrs. Madison's compliments prepared Mrs. McCabe 
 for Kitty's final triumph. No doubt in her heart she had 
 expected it all along, for who could compare with the 
 peerless Kitty! But she was so certain of it now that it 
 would have been a cruel blow indeed to have disappointed 
 her. Better, perhaps, call it Mrs. McCabe's triumph, 
 for the saucy minx, Kitty, took it all with a careless grace, 
 as if she were only receiving her due, while her mother 
 palpitated and glowed, her colour coming and going, 
 oblivious for the time of the circle about her, and with 
 eyes only for Kitty and the spectacle before her. And 
 it was easily a picture to dazzle the eyes of one even less 
 intensely interested than Kitty's mother: the lovely and 
 graceful girl, half child, half woman, cheeks glowing, eyes 
 dancing with delight, bending her pretty* head with its 
 chestnut curls to receive the crown from the hands of the 
 beautiful and stately woman who had long been the 
 idol of Washington society, and whose name is still 
 a name to conjure with in the annals of Republican 
 queens. 
 
 It was necessary to accompany the crowning with a 
 little speech, and Mrs. Madison knew how to do it charm- 
 ingly, and how to make the formal words sound as little 
 stilted as possible. 
 
 "I crown you Queen of Grace and Beauty, fair girl," 
 she said, "because, where all are beautiful, you shine 
 resplendent and preeminent; where all are graceful, you 
 move as the goddess Terpsichore herself." And then 
 
JOHN MORLAND 35 
 
 she bent and whispered a few words for Kitty's ear 
 alone; and her mother, Morland, and young Montclair, 
 all watching eagerly, wondered what the words could be 
 that dyed Kitty's snowy neck with a sudden wave of colour. 
 
 Kitty lifted her head, with its crown of gilt and tinsel 
 glittering and setting off her radiant beauty well, and 
 curtseyed low to Mrs. Madison; then, as she turned and 
 curtseyed to the admiring throng, who were noisily express- 
 ing their approval with shouts and clapping of hands, 
 Morland noted jealously that one fleeting glance from 
 her glowing eyes sought young Montclair before she 
 turned to meet her mother's smile. 
 
 The throng closed in around her immediately, showering 
 her with compliments and congratulations. The evening 
 was over, it was time to be thinking of going home, 
 and Morland wedged a path for Mrs. McCabe through 
 the throng to where Kitty stood, Montclair by her side 
 looking a little sulky, and a crowd of boys and girls 
 around her among whom she was distributing impar- 
 tially her smiles and merry words. 
 
 No doubt the little coquette knew she was making 
 Montclair furious, and was enjoying it, but at sight of 
 her mother she forgot all her little coquetries, and with 
 the abandon of a child flung herself into her mother's 
 arms. It was that warm-heartedness of Kitty, and her 
 loyalty to those she loved, lying so deep as sometimes 
 almost to be hidden under her gay and careless exterior, 
 that endeared her so to those who really knew her, and 
 kept them faithful to their trust in her through all the 
 calumnies that later assailed her. 
 
 Her mother held her close for a moment and kissed 
 her tenderly. When she released her, Morland, with 
 
36 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 the privilege of an old friend and an older man, 
 would have kissed her too; but Kitty kept him at a 
 distance. She had suddenly left the child behind, 
 and become the coquette once more. She gave him her 
 hand with all the airs of a duchess. 
 
 "You may kiss my hand, if you like, sir," she said. 
 
 Morland stared at her a moment dumfounded; 
 he did not know his Httle Kitty. Then, apparently 
 falling into her humour, he gravely bowed low over her 
 hand, just touching it with his lips. But he had his 
 revenge, for he turned to Mrs. McCabe as he lifted his 
 head and said, in a voice intended to be audible to Kitty 
 and her circle of admirers: 
 
 "Zounds, madam, it's time the child was taken home 
 and put to bed; her silly head's quite turned!" 
 
 At which some of her admirers were imprudent enough 
 to laugh, leaving Kitty hot with indignation and speech- 
 less with rage. 
 
 The Royal George was more crowded on the way 
 home than it had been on the way out, and Kitty was 
 even more the centre of attention. But there was a 
 happy confusion of voices, for all tongues had been 
 loosened by the events of the evening, and although 
 Montclair sat on one side of Kitty, he had no chance for 
 any conversation with her not to be shared by all the 
 others. Morland had taken good care this time not to 
 let go of Kitty, and he was close at the other side of her. 
 He did not trust young Montclair farther than he could 
 see him, he said to himself grimly. 
 
 Thanks to his forethought he caught a whispered fare- 
 well, as the Royal George thundered over the bridge at 
 Goose Creek, and Montclair rose to take his leave. 
 
JOHN MORLAND 37 
 
 "Remember! You will not fail me?" he whispered 
 sternly. 
 
 Kitty glanced up at him, a half-frightened look in 
 her startled eyes, and shook her head. 
 
 "You are not afraid?" he whispered more gently, and 
 Kitty shook her head again, but slowly, and with droop- 
 ing eyes and mounting colour. 
 
 For the rest of the ride home Kitty was quiet enough 
 to please even so diflBcult a person as Morland, 
 but the fact is he was not at all pleased. He would have 
 greatly preferred her noisy' coquetting with the boys to 
 the dreamy silence into which she seemed suddenly 
 to have lapsed — a rare mood with Kitty, and one that 
 he was sure boded no good. 
 
 He was greatly worried, for he was quite certain now 
 that there was mischief of some kind brewing, and he 
 was very uncertain what steps to take to prevent it. Should 
 he confide his suspicions to Mrs. McCabe, he might be 
 giving her needless pain and anxiety, and he had a feel- 
 ing that her path was far from one of roses at the best; 
 to add unnecessarily to her cares and sorrows would 
 be but a cruel thing to do. 
 
 Yet he did not for a moment consider warning Kitty's 
 father. He had seen some exhibitions of Tim McCabe's 
 temper when thoroughly roused, and he could not be 
 sure to what extremes of severity he might go in 
 dealing with Kitty should his suspicions prove correct. 
 Kitty was but a tender little child, wilful, no doubt, as 
 children often are, and silly and ignorant as young girls 
 are likely to be; but her very wilfulness and silliness and 
 ignorance but made Morland feel the more tenderly 
 toward her, and the more unwilling to expose her to the 
 
38 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 harshness of her father. No, whatever was to be done 
 must be done by him alone; whatever precautions were 
 to be taken must be taken quietly by himself, and with 
 no confidences to any one. 
 
 Fortunately he had overheard the hour for the appoint- 
 ment, and wherever Kitty might be at that hour there 
 would he be also. That much Morland had settled with 
 himself by the time the Royal George drew up in the 
 broad parallelogram of light before the open door of 
 McCabe's Tavern, whence issued sounds of revelry, 
 loud laughing, loud talking, the clinking of glasses, the 
 rattle of dice, the sharp flip of the cards on the deal 
 tables — all indications that the nightly games of chance, 
 for which McCabe's was noted, were in full swing. 
 
 Mrs. McCabe seemed to hesitate a moment, then, 
 as one who knows the ordeal cannot be shunned, she 
 said a hurried good-night to Morland, and drawing Kitty 
 close to her tried to slip unobserved through the noisy 
 room to her own quiet parlour beyond. But Henry 
 Clay, who was often to be found at McCabe's, where the 
 play was high, caught sight of the slim figure in gray, 
 and with his native gallantry rose to his feet to show his 
 respect. More or less awkwardly every man followed 
 his example, and a perfect quiet fell upon the room 
 through which Mrs. McCabe, holding Kitty close — 
 and Kitty herself shrinking behind her mother in a 
 fashion new to her — glided swiftly and silently like a 
 gray wraith. 
 
 Morland, watching them through the open door, 
 turned away, as they gained the safe refuge of Mrs. 
 McCabe's parlour, for a quiet walk through the fragrant 
 evening air. He had need of all the calming influences 
 
JOHN MORLAND 39 
 
 of the sweet scents and soothing sounds of an April night, 
 for as he hurried away from the glare and clamour of 
 McCabe's, he was saying over and over to himself 
 bitterly : 
 
 "My God! what a home and what a Ufe for such a 
 woman and such a child!" 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 BAEELY IN TIME 
 
 IF MORLAND could have seen little Kitty tossing 
 feverishly upon her pillow that night, he would have 
 been more certain than ever that his suspicions were 
 correct. There was no sleep in Kitty's eyes, and it was 
 not her dancing-school triumphs that were keeping her 
 awake. Triumphs of all kinds sat lightly upon Kitty. 
 Even at that early age she was quite used to them, and 
 the glow they brought her was but for the moment, and 
 not to be dwelt upon or lingered over fondly in memory, 
 as might have happened with one to whom they were 
 more of a novelty. 
 
 To-night as Kitty tossed upon her pillow it was of 
 whispered words and tones and glances she dreamed; 
 of a promise asked and given which, at moments, she 
 longed desperately to retract, and at other moments 
 longed as ardently to hasten its fulfilment. There was 
 no real thought of breaking her promise in her mind, for 
 that was one of Kitty's strongest traits: absolute fidelity 
 to her pledged word. But as she lay planning the details 
 necessary to the carrying out of her promise, there would 
 come to her suddenly a vivid realization of all the sorrow 
 and desolation it was going to' bring to those she loved 
 most — her father's pride laid low, her mother's heart 
 broken — and at such moments Mrs. Madison's whispered 
 words would return to her with poignant meaning: 
 
 40 
 
THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 41 
 
 "Take care, my child, lest your beauty prove a curse 
 instead of a blessing. It is a great gift — use it wisely 
 and well." 
 
 Her little soul sick and shuddering with dreadful 
 apprehensions, she would lie weeping for awhile, but 
 not even then did she think of retracting before it was 
 too late. She was thoroughly infatuated with Harold 
 Montclair, her first real lover. Or perhaps it was love 
 she was infatuated with, which amounts to the same 
 thing with most girls. Either way, her ardent nature was 
 wholly absorbed and ready to sacrifice everything for 
 this lover or this love. 
 
 Mrs. McCabe, the next morning, noticed Kitty's pale 
 face and listless air and, attributing them to the dissi- 
 pation of the night before, would have dosed her with 
 some such nauseous stuff as mothers of that day thought 
 specific for any ill, but that Kitty flatly rebelled. Her 
 listlessness continued through the day, alternating with 
 attacks of extreme nervousness, and Mrs. McCabe, 
 fearing a real illness was threatening, insisted on putting 
 Kitty to bed early. She went to her room with her, 
 as was her custom, and saw her tucked closely in 
 bed after the fashion of babyhood days, but she could 
 not understand why Kitty clung to her so forlornly as 
 she kissed her mother over and over, half laughing, 
 half crying, and calling to her after she had left the room: 
 "Good-night, good-night, mother dear. Oh, mother, 
 good-bye, good-bye!" 
 
 She spoke of it to Morland, who dropped into 
 her parlour about nine o'clock. She had never seen 
 Kitty in such a nervous state before, she said. She 
 feared the excitement of the " Coronation " had been too 
 
42 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 much for her, but she had put her to bed early and hoped 
 everything from a good night's sleep. Morland did 
 not show any great interest in Mrs. McCabe's fears, but 
 then, for some reason, he was himself unusually nervous 
 and abstracted, she observed. He went away at ten 
 o'clock, and shortly after half-past ten, closing time at 
 McCabe's — for those were the days of early hours in 
 Washington — everything was quiet about the house, and 
 the household apparently wrapped in sleep. 
 
 On leaving Mrs. McCabe, Morland prowled around 
 for awhile to be sure that the mischief had not yet started, 
 and then, as it still lacked a full hour to Montclair's 
 appointment, he walked over to the Capitol and, seating 
 himself on one of the fragments of broken pillars lying 
 around, looked off over the western slopes, not then 
 terraced and beautiful, but rough and strewn with all 
 kinds of rubbish, toward the White House, a mile away. 
 Dim and smoky lamps at long intervals outlined Penn- 
 sylvania Avenue, and lights were still brightly twinkling 
 in the President's mansion; while beyond it he could 
 catch an occasional silvery gleam of the Potomac curving 
 around the foot of its lawns. 
 
 The unusual illumination of the White House was due 
 to an evening levee President Monroe was holding, and 
 to which, promptly at eight o'clock, Morland had 
 accompanied General Jackson. After a few minutes' stay 
 he had left him there, with the excuse that he had work 
 to attend to, and no doubt Jackson thought it had to 
 do with his duties as Senator, and so excused him. He 
 was very proud of his young friend, and specially proud 
 that he should be Senator at an age that was barely legal. 
 Morland was only waiting now for the hour to pass 
 
JOHN MORLAND 43 
 
 when he could begin to act, and as he waited he was 
 looking forward prophetically to the future of a child 
 who was beginning life with an elopement at fifteen. 
 If he could help it, that life should not be ruined at the 
 very outset, for he had often assured himself that, could 
 Kitty be safely brought through the dangerous years 
 just ahead of her, a beautiful and useful and happy 
 womanhood was awaiting her. 
 
 Musing on Kitty's future, the time passed more swiftly 
 than he knew, and he roused himself with a start to 
 find that, after all his long waiting and lingering about 
 to be sure to be on time, he would have to hasten now or 
 he would be too late. 
 
 And very nearly too late he was — when this story would 
 never have been written, and, if the historians are to 
 be believed, the future of this great country would have 
 been entirely changed. Morland did not know all 
 the weighty issues that hung trembling in the balance as, 
 half running and stumbUng at every step on broken 
 masses of stone and heaps of rubbish, with the 
 majestic pile looming threateningly behind him in the 
 dim light and making his path more difficult by 
 casting it into deeper shadows, he hurried down the 
 western slopes of Capitol Hill toward McCabe's, 
 anathematizing himself at every step for his needless 
 tardiness. 
 
 He knew Kitty's window very well — it was at the rear 
 of the house overlooking the flower garden, and he came 
 in sight of it just in time to discern by the pale light of 
 the stars a curious-looking object slowly creeping up 
 the side of the house. He could not distinguish its out- 
 line, but he divined at once what it was. Without doubt 
 
44 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 it was a rope-ladder being drawn carefully and noise- 
 lessly into position for Kitty's use. 
 
 The house stood on the comer of two streets, and the 
 garden ran along the side street, with a gate at the rear. 
 He would not wait to go down by the gate, but with a 
 running jump cleared the low stone wall facing him, and 
 landed among the shrubbery with more noise in alighting 
 than he could have wished, since he had hoped to come 
 upon young Montclair silently, and catch him in the very 
 act. Perhaps it was just as well as it was, however, for 
 at the sudden sound of his heavy fall among the crackling 
 branches a dark figure at the foot of the ladder looked 
 up startled, and without a word glided swiftly away down 
 the garden path, and through the gate at the rear. 
 
 "Coward!" muttered Morland between his teeth, for 
 he had hoped to catch the scoundrel, and thus to leave 
 Kitty to her fate with the tell-tale ladder hanging from 
 her window seemed to him the very depths of villainy. 
 
 He had expected to hear some outcry from Kitty at 
 her lover's flight, but she had been too absorbed in making 
 the ladder secure at the top to discover it, and guessing 
 that this was the state of the case, Morland stole softly 
 to the foot of the ladder, and took young Montclair's 
 place. For a moment he considered the feasibility of 
 mounting the ladder, letting Kitty know that all was dis- 
 covered and her lover fled, and sending her quietly to 
 bed with no one in the house the wiser for her escapade. 
 But there were too many risks involved; risks he was 
 willing enough to take for himself, but not for Kitty. 
 Suppose Kitty, frightened at his sudden appearance, 
 should make an outcry that roused the house; who 
 would understand his being in her room at that hour of 
 
JOHN MORLAND 45 
 
 the night ? And all explanations could only make it the 
 worse for Kitty. Or, suppose the sudden fright should 
 throw her into convulsions ? He had heard that it often 
 had that effect on young girls, sometimes even destroying 
 the mind. No, he would await Kitty at the foot of the 
 ladder. 
 
 He did not have to wait long. He heard a whispered 
 "I 'm ready," and, also in a whisper, he replied, "Hurry." 
 Then he saw a shadowy figure climb deftly through the 
 window and glide swiftly down the ladder. But he 
 was not quite prepared for what followed. Kitty's foot 
 had not touched the ground when she flung her arms 
 around his neck and between ardent kisses and stifled 
 sobs she murmured over and over: 
 
 "Oh, Harold, how can I! How can I!" 
 
 Now Morland had felt Kitty's arms around his neck 
 before, and had tasted her kisses, but they had been the 
 caresses given by a. child to the friend of her mother who 
 liked to make a pet of her, and had none of that peculiar 
 quality that now sent the blood bounding through 
 his veins and rushing to his bronzed cheek. To 
 his own surprise he was greatly embarrassed. He had 
 supposed he would know exactly how to treat Kitty — 
 like a naughty child to be dealt with rather sternly, 
 but also with much tenderness. Now he found the 
 sternness impossible. Involuntarily his arms closed about 
 Kitty as tenderly as Harold Montclair's might, and all 
 he could say was, "Oh, Kitty! How could you!" 
 
 Terribly startled at finding herself in some one's arms 
 that were not Montclair's, Kitty struggled desperately, 
 though silently, to free herself; but Morland's strong 
 3,rms held her close. Fighting like some little wild animal, 
 
46 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 even scratching and biting in her desperation, he found 
 at last that he must use authority, and he believed a Httle 
 salutary roughness might be good for the naughty child. 
 
 "Be quiet! Kitty," he whispered sternly. "Mont- 
 clair is gone! Ran away and left you to your fate, like 
 the coward he is, when he found he was in danger of 
 discovery! Now go back to your room, unfasten the 
 rope-ladder, and throw it down, and go quietly to bed, 
 and no one shall ever know that you came near making a 
 terrible fool of yourself, and ruining your life forever!" 
 
 Kitty recognized the voice now, and was no longer 
 frightened, since she found it was her old friend who 
 held her, and whom the little minx had long ago dis- 
 covered she could wind around her finger with ease. 
 But for a moment her fright only gave place to intense 
 indignation at hearing Montclair called a coward. Then 
 in a flash the bitter truth came home to her that he was 
 a coward! She knew she could never have deserted him 
 at such a crisis, but would have stood by to share with 
 him whatever fate had in store. Her curly head drooped, 
 and burying it on Morland's broad shoulder she wept 
 bitterly, but quietly. Morland let her weep for a few 
 moments; he recognized the nature of her tears, and he 
 was consumed with an infinite tenderness toward her 
 that one of life's bitterest lessons should have come to her 
 so young. 
 
 But he knew, too, that time was precious. Any 
 moment now they were in danger of discovery, and he 
 was in the act of telling Kitty she must dry her tears and 
 hasten back to her room when his arm was seized from 
 behind, and a pistol barrel flashed in his face. 
 
 "What does this mean!" Tim McCabe shouted in his 
 
JOHN MORLAND 47 
 
 very ear. "Major Morland! Running off with my 
 daughter! By all that 's holy you shall answer for this! 
 Sneak! Scoundrel! To bed with you, Kitty, I will see 
 you later!" 
 
 At the first sound of her father's harsh voice Kitty, 
 startled, had lifted her head from Morland's shoulder, 
 and at sight of the pistol she had shrieked in terror. 
 Morland, who had been holding her in his arms as he 
 would have held a little child, set her on the ground, 
 and turned instantly to face McCabe. But McCabe was 
 in a towering rage, and there was no stopping the tide 
 that poured from his lips : oaths, accusations, vile epithets 
 rushed headlong one over the other. 
 
 Pale and trembling, Kitty crept close to Morland's 
 side and he took hold of her hand to try to reassure her 
 by his touch. He was himself momently afraid that 
 Tim McCabe, in his blind rage, might attempt to strike 
 Kitty, and he was on the alert to prevent it, waiting only 
 for the flowing tide of objurgations to exhaust itself, and 
 give him a chance to make an explanation. In the 
 meantime he was puzzling his brains to devise an explana- 
 tion that should, at least partially, shield Kitty. That 
 might have been easy but for the tell-tale ladder — that 
 was an instrument belonging too peculiarly to midnight 
 elopements to try to deny its present office. As for himself, 
 he should simply declare himself guiltless of any intention 
 of eloping with Kitty, without implicating Montclair, 
 for he guessed Kitty would want her lover shielded from 
 her father's wrath. 
 
 There came a moment when, for the very lack of 
 breath, Tim McCabe had to pause, but it was Kitty who 
 seized the opportunity, not Morland. 
 
48 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 "Father," she said quietly, trembling but brave, 
 "You are doing Major Morland great wrong. But for 
 him I should be at this moment well on the way to George- 
 town and you would not have discovered it until morning. 
 There is no reason why I should protect the man who has 
 not hesitated to leave me to my fate, but I shall not tell 
 you who he is, only it is not Major Morland. He was 
 not trying to rob you of your daughter, but to save your 
 daughter to you." 
 
 Kitty trembled so violently while she was making her 
 brave speech, that Morland would have put his arm 
 around her to hold her had he not feared to enrage 
 her father the mor^ against her. Had she spoken 
 excitedly, shouted at her father as he shouted at her, 
 her words would have made no impression upon McCabe, 
 but her very quietness of tone and manner carried 
 conviction. 
 
 "I apologize for my mistake. Major," he said surlily, 
 "and I thank you for your kind offices whatever they 
 were. As for you, miss, come along with me!" and he 
 seized Kitty's arm roughly, and turned toward the house. 
 
 Now was Kitty in mortal terror. She knew not what 
 awful punishment awaited her, and her childish imagina- 
 tion pictured the worst. Morland was hardly in less 
 terror for her, for being a man of entirely different fibre, 
 he was not sure to what lengths Tim McCabe's coarseness 
 and savage temper might not go. To his intense relief 
 Mrs. McCabe came hurrying from the house at this 
 moment. She had been roused by her husband's loud 
 tones, and had hurried into dressing-gown and slippers, 
 and run out to see what was happening. Her quick 
 glance took in the hanging ladder, Kitty, whom she 
 
JOHN MORLAND 49 
 
 had left in bed, entirely dressed clinging to Morland, 
 and Morland himself, whose nervousness and dis- 
 traction of the evening returned to her in a flash. For 
 one shocked moment she, too, thought he had been 
 trying to run away with Kitty, but her loyalty to an old 
 friend would not permit her to harbour such a thought. 
 There was some explanation, she was sure, and in the 
 meantime her only care was Kitty. 
 
 "My child! my child!" she uttered in a voice tense with 
 feeling, but hushed, for whatever was the matter she was 
 keenly alive to the necessity of not arousing the house, 
 if it had not already been aroused. 
 
 Kitty fled into her mother's outstretched arms. It 
 was a curious thing, and one Morland had often noted, 
 that the big, pompous, blustering Tim McCabe stood more 
 in awe of his gentle wife than of any other living being. 
 But that he was so terribly incensed with Kitty, he would 
 never have ventured on even the comparatively mild 
 speech that he now uttered in a low growl, for his wife's 
 repressed tones had brought him to a sense of the impor- 
 tance of making no more commotion than necessary. 
 
 "Madam," he said, "I will attend to your daughter. 
 Take her to her room. I will be there presently, as soon 
 as I have made some further inquiries from Major Mor- 
 land as to this night's doings." 
 
 Morland never had found greater occasion to admire 
 Mrs. McCabe's courage and calm good sense than at 
 this moment. 
 
 "Timothy," she said, quietly ignoring his speech, "go 
 up to Kitty's room and unfasten that ladder so that it 
 will drop to the ground. Major Morland will bring it 
 into my parlour where the fire is still burning, and we 
 
50 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 will destroy it. Then, if he and Kitty will tell us all about 
 the affair, we can together decide what is to be done." 
 
 She waited for no reply from Tim, but with her arm 
 around the trembling and weeping Kitty she turned at 
 once to the house, and left the two men facing each other 
 in the dim light. 
 
 Tim felt it necessary to assert himself, and now that 
 his wife was not present to overawe him he found his 
 courage again. 
 
 "By all that's holy!" he blustered, "the madam takes 
 too much upon herself. She need not think she 's going 
 to save Kitty from the consequences of this night. I '11 
 show her who 's master in this house!" 
 
 Morland's blood boiled at this coarse speech, but he 
 knew the folly of meddling between man and wife, and 
 he could make some excuse for Tim's still unappeased 
 wrath. 
 
 "Do you not think," he said, trying to speak coolly, 
 "that it would be wise to follow your wife's suggestion at 
 once? Any moment some one may appear to find out 
 the cause of this midnight commotion and it would be 
 rather awkward to have to explain that ladder." 
 
 Tim muttered some incoherent reply, of which only 
 the words "By all that 's holy" were intelligible, but he 
 moved away, still muttering, to execute his wife's 
 command. 
 
 When, a few minutes later, Morland brought the rope- 
 ladder, folded into as small a compass as possible, into 
 Mrs. McCabe's parlour, he found Kitty and her mother 
 seated side by side at a large round table that occupied 
 the centre of the room, Kitty's head buried in her arms 
 resting on the table, her chestnut curls falling forward 
 
JOHN MORLAND 51 
 
 over her face, and silent sobs shaking her from head 
 to foot. 
 
 Mrs. McCabe glanced up with a face so pale and 
 anguish stricken that Morland's heart ached for the 
 mother more than for the daughter. Neither of them 
 spoke, and a moment later McCabe coming in, the two 
 men set silently to work cutting the rope into pieces small 
 enough to throw upon the logs. The fire had been 
 smouldering, and now the tow quickly caught and blazed 
 up, filling the room with a glow that insensibly brought 
 a little cheerfulness to the depressed circle watch- 
 ing it as if they were three conspirators destroying the 
 evidences of their crime. It helped to give Mrs. McCabe 
 courage to begin a discussion that she had been dreading 
 and shrinking from. She knew she must begin it if she 
 would have it take the right direction; she must not give 
 Tim a chance to give it a false start. 
 
 "Tim," she said, so gently that Tim, who was still 
 muttering to himself and shaking his head threateningly, 
 looked up half mollified by her tone before she had uttered 
 another word, "we must take counsel together as to 
 what is the best thing to do for our little daughter. I 
 think in a few minutes," gently stroking Kitty's chestnut 
 curls as she spoke, "she will be quiet enough to tell us all 
 about it. And I am very sure that at this moment she 
 is as truly sorry and as truly repentant for any wrong she 
 has done as our hearts could wish." 
 
 Kitty did not lift her head, but at her mother's words 
 the sobs grew more violent, till her little figure shook with 
 a perfect hurricane of grief. Morland longed to assure 
 her that it was all right now, and she need weep no longer, 
 but that was not the effect Kitty's grief seemed to have 
 
52 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 on her father. The wrath that had been a Uttle appeased 
 by his wife's words flamed up again at the sight and sound 
 of Kitty's redoubled sobs. 
 
 "Let her stop her sniveUing and tell us all about it 
 pretty quick," he growled, " or I '11 find some way to make 
 her. What was the scoundrel's name, Kitty? I intend 
 to give him such a horse-whipping to-morrow as he will 
 not soon forget, and may prove a warning to others of 
 his kind." 
 
 There was no answer from Kitty, but a low moan. To 
 save his life Morland could not restrain himself at that 
 piteous sound, though he well knew that it was not his 
 place to speak. 
 
 "And have all Washington talking about your 
 daughter's escapade with some young rascal?" he said 
 with heat. "That would be a fine way to hush the 
 matter up, and save her reputation and yours!" 
 
 " It will be time enough to give your advice when it 's 
 asked," retorted Tim insolently. 
 
 Morland bit his lips. Who was Tim McCabe, this 
 common Irish innkeeper, that he should speak like that 
 to him! It was time for him to take his hat and go, but 
 he could not go while Kitty's fate was still so uncertain, and 
 while he was not quite sure that her father might not use 
 violence with her. Moreover, he knew he had brought 
 the retort upon himself; hereafter he would be wiser and 
 speak when he was spoken to. 
 
 A faint colour had crept into Mrs. McCabe's pale 
 cheeks at her husband's words, and glancing depre- 
 catingly at Morland she hastened to speak. 
 
 "I think Major Morland is quite right, Tim," she 
 said, still gently. . "It must be our effort now to let no 
 
JOHN MORLAND 53 
 
 hint of this get abroad — ^for our own sakes, but most of 
 all far our dear little daughter's." 
 
 "And let the scoundrel go free?" demanded Tim 
 wrathfully. "He deserves the gallows for this night's 
 work," and unconsciously he shook his fist in the air, as 
 if shaking it in the scoundrel's face. 
 
 But at last Kitty lifted her head and showed a most 
 woe-begone, tear-stained face, bearing little likeness to 
 the face of the Kitty Morland knew best, always dimpling 
 with saucy smiles. But, none the less, the signs of woe 
 stirred him as the smiles had never done, and because he 
 was so stirred her words had a sting for him that Kitty 
 little dreamed. 
 
 "He is no scoundrel, father," she cried passionately. 
 "I love him and he loves me. And but for Major Mor- 
 land I would be his wife by this time. And I will never 
 
 forgive the Major — never! And I will still marry " 
 
 She came near speaking his name, and stopped short, 
 frightened at the slip she had almost made. 
 
 The three listeners were aghast, and Morland was 
 intensely disappointed; for he had believed that the 
 coward's part young Montclair had played must have 
 effectually killed Kitty's love for him. She seemed 
 now to have recovered from her momentary distrust of 
 him, and to be as madly infatuated as ever, and it was 
 not Montclair but himself who was to suffer as a result 
 of his kind offices in her behalf. "Well," he said to 
 himself, with a grim smile, "did I expect anything dif- 
 ferent ? It is ever the way in a love affair that the meddler 
 gets all the blows on both sides." 
 
 Her father gazed at her, speechless, and her mother could 
 only say, "Kitty! and that is your gratitude to the 
 
54 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 kindest of friends!" But Moriand begged leave to speak 
 for himself. 
 
 "I have been so foolish once as to offer advice unasked, 
 will you permit me to do so again ?" he inquired, looking 
 from Mrs. McCabe to her husband. 
 
 "Go on," said Tim gruffly. 
 
 " It is what we need and will be grateful for," said Mrs. 
 McCabe gently. 
 
 "I wish to say, then, that I have long thought that any 
 tavern, but more particularly a tavern like this one, 
 patronized only by men, is a poor place in which to bring 
 up a young girl. Not even the best of mothers and the 
 most careful training can counteract the evil influences 
 of such surroundings. I would recommend that Kitty 
 be sent away to boarding-school, and I believe that there 
 could be no better one found than the Convent of the 
 Visitation in Georgetown." 
 
 Kitty had listened quietly to him at first, but at his 
 last words she almost shrieked: 
 
 " I will not go into a convent. I will not — I will not! 
 I will run away again, I will run away a hundred times! 
 I will never, never go!" 
 
 There seemed no stopping her, and Moriand again 
 mentally berated himself for meddling. Tim, losing what 
 little patience he possessed, seized her roughly by the arm 
 and shook her. 
 
 "Shut up! do you hear!" he shouted, harshly. "Any 
 more of this and you are packed off to the convent 
 to-morrow! You chit of a child, to be talking about 
 marrying! What you need is to be whipped and 
 sent to bed, and kept there two or three days on 
 bread and water." 
 
JOHN MORLAND 55 
 
 His roughness had a curious effect. In a moment the 
 raving child seemed to be changed into a woman. She 
 freed herself from her father's clutch and spoke with 
 quiet dignity: 
 
 "I am no ' chit of a child,' father. I am nearly sixteen, 
 and I have always heard that my mother was but sixteen 
 when I was born." 
 
 The effect of her words was inconceivable. Tim 
 stared blankly at his wife, and she gazed back at him 
 with a look of terror in her sweet eyes. Her lips moved, 
 but almost refused to speak, yet Morland heard distinctly 
 under her breath the words, "the sins of the fathers." 
 Tim sank into a chair beside the table as one whose strength 
 had suddenly deserted him, and bowed his big head on 
 his folded arms. His wife hesitated a moment, then 
 slowly moved toward him, knelt beside him, put her head 
 down by his, and her arm around his neck. A great 
 groan burst from the man, and the woman was trembling 
 and shaking visibly. It was more than Kitty could 
 stand. 
 
 "Oh, father, mother! what have I said! what have I 
 done!" she cried. "Forgive me! forgive me!" and she 
 flung herself beside the two with an arm about each, 
 imploring their forgiveness.. 
 
 It was no place for any outsider. Morland picked up 
 his hat and stole softly away. He knew now that the 
 rumour he had often heard was true, that Mrs. McCabe 
 had run away with the handsome Tim, and he could 
 easily fancy the anguish of both parents at seeing their 
 early folly and sin against their own parents resurrected 
 in their child. 
 
 He stood for a moment under the stars wondering 
 
56 THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 
 
 at those inscrutable laws from whose judgments there 
 seems no escape, in this world at least, and he 
 found himself saying aloud to the quiet night in a 
 half groan: 
 
 "With what measure ye mete it shall be measured to 
 you again." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 A FATAL SNUB 
 
 TT WAS very little that Morland saw of Kitty for the 
 ■'• next three years. 
 
 His advice had not been entirely followed, but it had 
 suggested to Mr. and Mrs. McCabe a way to manage 
 their troublesome daughter. They did not send her to 
 the convent, but they sent her, instead, to school in New 
 York under the care of Governor Clinton, an old friend 
 of both Tim and his wife. They had decided upon 
 this course in a very amicable conference following that 
 terrible outburst of feeling that Kitty's words had pre- 
 cipitated. Sitting between her father and mother with 
 a hand clasped by each, parents and child restored once 
 more to love and harmony, they talked it all over, and 
 Kitty professed herself ready to do whatever they thought 
 best, providing always it was not to go to the convent. 
 Two days later saw her on her way to New York with 
 her father after a tearful good-bye to her mother, and a 
 very friendly one to Morland, whom she seemed to 
 entirely forgive, and whose forgiveness in turn she 
 evidently thought it unnecessary to ask. 
 
 But Kitty was not long in New York. In spite of all 
 the good Governor could do — and he devoted himself 
 to Kitty's amusement on Sundays and holidays — she 
 was terribly homesick. She wrote a most imploring 
 letter to her father, promising all kinds of good conduct 
 
 57 
 
58 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 for the future if he would only let her come home. It 
 was a plea Kitty's mother could not resist, for with the 
 absence of Kitty the light and the joy had quite gone out 
 of her life. 
 
 But desolate as Mrs. McCabe had been without 
 Kitty, she might not have been wilUng to have her home 
 from New York but for a most fortunate circumstance. 
 She was quite determined that Kitty should not return 
 to the tavern. She had known for a long time that it 
 was no place for a girl just developing into young woman- 
 hood, but she had not realized how far Kitty had advanced 
 in that development until the terrible experience of the 
 attempted elopement. Greatly as she longed to have 
 her little girl with her, she knew now that Kitty was a 
 little girl no longer, and she knew, too, that with remark- 
 able beauty she had inherited a strain of wildness and 
 audacity through her Irish blood that rendered the beauty 
 doubly dangerous. 
 
 The romance of her own ill-assorted marriage had 
 quickly faded. Tim McCabe had proved himself very 
 different from the hero of her youthful dreams. The 
 handsome young oflBcer of dragoons who had captured 
 her girlish fancy had settled down into a commonplace 
 tavern-keeper, his youthful beauty coarsening with the 
 years, and his youthful ambitions degenerating into a 
 desire for no better fame than to be known as setting the 
 best table in Washington. How earnestly she hoped 
 for something finer and nobler in life for her beautiful 
 daughter than she had known! 
 
 There seemed to her now but one thing left to live for: 
 to devote every energy to guarding and guiding Kitty 
 through these perilous years of girlhood into a safe and 
 
JOHN MORLAND 59 
 
 bappy womanhood. Therefore, suffer as she knew she 
 must from the separation, she was unwilling to have 
 Kitty with her in the unwholesome surroundings of 
 McCabe's Tavern. But, fortunately, in the two months 
 that Kitty had spent in New York "Miss English's 
 Seminary," only just started when Kitty went away, had 
 grown into a large and flourishing school with a fully 
 established boarding department, already well patronized 
 by the daughters of the members of Congress. Kitty 
 should be put to school at Miss English's where the care 
 would be of the strictest and the advantages the best, and 
 yet where her mother could see her every few days when 
 the hunger for her absent daughter should grow 
 unbearable. 
 
 It was almost June now, and according to the regula- 
 tions of the present day, Miss English's school should 
 have closed. But in those days schools did not close until 
 August. Kitty could be entered at once, and accordingly 
 Tim McCabe took once more the long stage-coach trip to 
 New York, and brought Kitty back witl^ him. 
 
 But although Miss English's school was still open, 
 Congress had adjourned, and Kitty, who was at home 
 for two days before settling down in school, missed most 
 of her old friends. There were still a number of 
 "boarders" left — Government officials of various kinds 
 — but Major Morland was not there nor Mr. Calhoun, 
 nor "Tall Harry," dropping in to see her mother and 
 chucking Kitty under the chin, nor her old friend General 
 Jackson. Of them all she missed Morland most, for she 
 had had him so entirely at her beck and call that he had 
 grown to be almost one of the necessities of her life. She 
 was not at all pleased with the prospect of entering Miss 
 
60 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 English's boarding-school; but it was better than New 
 York, and far better than the convent, and she found 
 these two were her only alternatives. 
 
 She entered the school in a very proper spirit of 
 submission, fully determined to be such a model of 
 deportment as should quite efface from her mother's 
 and father's minds the remembrance of all wrong-doing. 
 But it must be confessed that she did not long remain 
 in this admirable frame of mind, and her three years at 
 Miss English's were an unbroken record of getting into 
 schoolgirl scrapes and getting out of them. 
 
 She found there some girls she knew and others whose 
 names were familiar to her, and it was not long before 
 she was an acknowledged leader among them all. She 
 was more popular than heretofore she had ever been with 
 girls, for the simple reason that there were no boys about, 
 and so no occasion for jealousies. Or, rather, the occa- 
 sions were few and at long intervals. To be sure there 
 was the May Festival at the school, when queens were 
 elected and kings chosen, and plays and concerts given, 
 winding up with a grand ball in the evening. Kitty was 
 certain to be chosen queen, and to be given the star part in 
 the play, and at the ball her card was the first to be filled, 
 with young men in troops following her wherever she 
 went, all of which occasioned a little feeling at the time and 
 some ill-natured comment from the less-favoured ones. 
 But the May Festival only came once a year and was 
 forgotten in a few weeks, and Kitty, who was generous 
 with the rich hampers occasionally permitted from home, 
 and always full of wild spirits, was soon as popular as 
 ever. 
 
 Her two months in New York had done one thing 
 
JOHN MORLAND 61 
 
 for her: it had entirely cured her of her infatuation for 
 Harold Montclair. She had had leisure to think him 
 over, and there was always a substratum of good sense 
 under Kitty's scatterbrains, though she did not always 
 allow it to come to the surface. She could see very 
 clearly now that there was nothing manly in inducing a 
 girl of fifteen to run away from home, and it still rankled 
 that he should have fled at the first approach of danger, 
 and left her to meet it alone. 
 
 She had persisted in her refusal to reveal Montclair's 
 name, but Mrs. McCabe had a very shrewd suspicion as 
 to his identity, having witnessed his devotion to Kitty on 
 the night of the dance at Brown's. It was a suspicion, 
 however, which she did not communicate to her husband, 
 lest he should be betrayed by his hasty temper into 
 carrying out his threat and so let the whole story, 
 which she was so strenuously trying to keep quiet, 
 be bruited abroad — a savoury morsel for the scandal- 
 mongers when Kitty should have arrived at young woman- 
 hood, and be subjected to the limelight that played about 
 every young woman in Washington society at that period, 
 especially if she were more than ordinarily beautiful. 
 
 Morland, seeing that Mrs. McCabe suspected the 
 truth, told her how rightly she had guessed; for he thought 
 it just as well that she should know against whom to 
 be on guard. He did not believe Montclair had so easily 
 given Kitty up; he believed he was only waiting for 
 another opportunity. 
 
 He was quite right in his conjecture that Montclair 
 had not given up his designs on Kitty. He was one of 
 the first to set the fashion, that soon became so universal 
 among the Washington young men interested in Miss 
 
62 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 English's girls, of spending his leisure hours in drinking 
 from the famous pump across the street from her school. 
 The pump was shaded by a spreading oak, and under 
 that spreading oak Montclair spent most of the second 
 day of Kitty's installation at Miss English's, hoping to 
 catch a glimpse of her at one of the windows. 
 
 He had only just heard of her return from New York, 
 and he believed Kitty would be as anxious to get a glimpse 
 of him as he was to see her once more. Late in the day 
 he was rewarded by seeing her stop a moment at an 
 open hall window and glance in his direction. He took 
 off his hat and waved it eagerly, but she turned away 
 immediately without returning his greeting. Montclair 
 was not discouraged, he was sure of one of two things: 
 either she had not recognized him, or there had been 
 some teacher or spy near by to prevent her returning his 
 salutation. He was on hand the next day with an insa- 
 tiable thirst that no water but the water from Miss English's 
 pump could quench, but he caught no ghmpse of Kitty. 
 
 He kept it up patiently, day after day, week after week. 
 By that time there were several other young men 
 drinking from the same pump, and there were frequent 
 glimpses of girls appearing hastily at windows and waving 
 white handkerchiefs for a moment. Several times Kitty 
 had been one of these girls, but though Montclair always 
 took the flutter of her handkerchief to himself, he was not 
 without a lurking distrust of one or two of the other boys 
 who were as eager as he at the glimpse of Kitty. 
 
 There came a day when his suspicions were cruelly 
 confirmed. Several times he had waylaid the procession 
 of girls out for their regular afternoon walk under guard 
 of a teacher, but each time Kitty had passed him with 
 
JOHN MORLAND 63 
 
 her eyes demurely dropped. That might easily be for the 
 benefit of the lynx-eyed guardian — he would not take that 
 as conclusive — but he thought he knew of another and 
 a better chance to put his surmises to the proof. Miss 
 English herself was in the habit of marshalling that part 
 of her flock who were Episcopalians to St. John's Church 
 in Greorgetown, sending the others under convoy of a 
 teacher to the Foundry Church, erected by Mr. Henry 
 Foxhall in grateful memory of the cyclone in 1814, that 
 had intervened to save his foundry from the British, who 
 were on their way to burn it. These were the two popular 
 churches in Washington at that day, and Kitty's father 
 and mother, being good Church of England people, Kitty 
 naturally went to St. John's in the Royal George, regularly 
 engaged by Miss English for the Sunday use of her pupils. 
 
 On a lovely Sunday morning in June Montclair betook 
 himself thither, too late for the services but in good 
 time to see the congregation come out. Among the 
 glittering array of fashionable vehicles drawn up around 
 the church his eye fell at once upon the Royal George, 
 an assurance that no untoward fate had kept Miss 
 English's young ladies at home that morning. He was 
 so early that he easily secured for himself a post that 
 would command the situation, close to the Royal George, 
 where it was even possible he might find a chance to 
 assist some of the young ladies up the high step into the 
 coach. 
 
 It was soon evident that he had done well to come 
 early. As the hour for closing drew near, the open space 
 in front of the church began to fill with young men, 
 many of them slipping quietly out of the church before 
 the service was quite over to be sure of good positions; 
 
64 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 for the array of youth and beauty pouring from St. John's 
 on a bright Sunday morning was a spectacle not willingly 
 to be missed by the young gallants of the day. 
 
 Of course, a goodly number of the short-waisted, long- 
 skirted coats had gathered around the Royal George, for 
 there is something in a girls' boarding-school irresistibly 
 attractive to the very young male. Equally, of course, 
 since he had been first on the ground, no one had quite 
 so good a place as Montclair, and he could not restrain 
 a slight but supercilious smile as he caught a dark look 
 from young Laidley whom he had suspected of sharing 
 in Kitty's good graces. He smiled too soon, however, 
 for as, almost the very last of the gay throng, Miss 
 English's little procession filed out of church between 
 the double row of dark coats, distributing to right and 
 left coy smiles and glances from under demurely dropped 
 lids, he intercepted a ravishing smile and a bewitching 
 glance directed full upon young Laidley from under the 
 curling lashes of the faithless Kitty. He ground his 
 teeth with rage, but was only the more determined to 
 win such a signal token of her favour as should send 
 his rival off thoroughly discomfited; and as it came 
 Kitty's turn to mount the high step into the Royal 
 George he darted boldly forward to assist her with an 
 outstretched hand and a murmured "Allow me," all 
 in his best manner. 
 
 Kitty ignored the hand but she did not ignore its 
 owner. She turned upon him a wide-eyed look of such 
 insolent disdain, absolutely devoid of all recognition, 
 as would hardly seem possible to a creature so young 
 and tender, made, one might think, only for gentleness 
 and love. A suppressed snicker assured Montclair that 
 
JOHN MORLAND 65 
 
 his discomfiture had not been unobserved by Laidley 
 and the other young men on watch, and from that moment 
 a deadly wrath smouldered in his heart against Kitty. 
 And there is no doubt that a large part of her future 
 troubles owed their origin to the snub so lightly bestowed 
 that fair June morning. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 MRS. ADAMS's BALL 
 
 THE three years that Kitty spent at Miss English's 
 school were marked by a rapid development from 
 a lovely girl into a radiantly beautiful woman. 
 
 Morland had seen Kitty occasionally through her first 
 school year. Once or twice he had met her in Mrs. 
 McCabe's parlour on the rare occasions when Kitty was 
 permitted a visit home. She never appeared in the 
 dining-room at such times, and many of the old habitues 
 of McCabe's, who at first had missed the lively child, 
 were beginning to forget her existence. Not so Morland. 
 He had been really fond of her, and, if he had not cared 
 so much for her, the episode of the elopement, when 
 he had acted the part of Providence, would have made 
 him feel that the threads of Kitty's fate and his own had, 
 for that once at least, been so intertwined that he could 
 never quite lose his interest in her. 
 
 Occasionally also he saw her at St. John's. He was 
 not a regular churchgoer, but Mrs. McCabe was the most 
 faithful of attendants, and if she had not gone from a 
 conscientious sense of duty would have been just as faith- 
 ful from an insatiable desire to feast her eyes on her 
 lovely child sitting in one of the great square pews near 
 the chancel. There was always opportunity for a word 
 with her while Miss English was waiting for the congre- 
 gation to get out of the church before marshalling out her 
 
 66 
 
THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 67 
 
 own little procession, and it was on the occasions when 
 Morland accompanied Mrs. McCabe to church that he, 
 too, had the satisfaction of at least as much as a bow and 
 a smile. 
 
 But for the two years following Morland was not 
 in Washington. Affairs on his Tennessee plantation 
 demanded his attention, and he resigned his seat in 
 the Senate. It was only an interim of two years, for he 
 was too valuable to the Jackson party, when the hero 
 began to be considered as Presidential timber, not to 
 be sent back to his old place. 
 
 It was the morning of the 8th of January, 1824. 
 Morland, who had only arrived the day before in 
 Washington, was sitting with General Jackson in 
 his room at Gadsby's industriously reading the National 
 Intelligencer. 
 
 "Hello!" he said suddenly, interrupting the silence 
 that had been unbroken for fifteen minutes, "our friend 
 Agg has turned poet! Just let me read you a verse or two; 
 it 's about your party to-night." 
 
 The General looked up from his writing and nodded 
 his assent, and as Morland read he glistened with a 
 pleased smile. 
 
 "Wend you with the world to-night? 
 
 Sixty gray and giddy twenty, 
 Flirts that court and prudes that slight. 
 
 State coquettes and spinsters plenty. 
 See the tide of fashion flowing, 
 
 'T is the noon of beauty's reign — 
 Webster, Hamilton are going. 
 
 Eastern Floyd and Southern Hayne; 
 Forsythe with her group of graces. 
 
68 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 Both the Crowninshields in blue, 
 The Pearces with their heavenly faces ■ 
 
 And eyes like suns that dazzle through. 
 Belles and matrons, maids and madams. 
 All are gone to Mistress Adams'." 
 
 "Wend you with the world to-night? 
 
 Brown and fair and wise and witty. 
 Eyes that float in seas of light. 
 
 Laughing mouths and dimples pretty. 
 Many a form of fairy birth. 
 
 Many a Hebe yet unwon; 
 Wirt, a gem of purest worth, 
 
 Lovely, laughing Plessonton, 
 Western Thomas, gaily smiling, 
 
 Boaland, nature's protege; 
 Young DeWolf, all hearts beguiling, 
 
 Morgan, Benton, Brown, and Lee, 
 Belles and matrons, maids and madams. 
 All are gone to Mistress Adams'." 
 
 " A very pretty poem," said the General gravely. 
 
 "And I think it's a straw that foreshadows what a 
 grand party this is to be to-night," Morland added. 
 "It strikes me as particularly civil of Mrs. Adams to be 
 giving a party to her husband's most formidable rival." 
 
 " It 's not as a candidate for the Presidency, I suppose, 
 that she tenders me this courtesy," said Jackson, smiling 
 grimly. 
 
 "Oh, no, of course not; it 's as the hero of New Orleans 
 and to celebrate the Eighth of January. But none the 
 less I think it 's very clever of her." 
 
 "It is! And I fully appreciate it. I consider Mrs. 
 Adams a most excellent lady and I have the highest 
 
JOHN MORLAND 69 
 
 regard for her husband," said Jackson formally. Then 
 he added, with a tinge of bitterness that he could never 
 restrain when speaking of Clay: 
 
 "When I remember from whom we were saved when 
 the portfolio of State was given to him, I am heartily 
 grateful to both Mr. Monroe and Mr. Adams." 
 
 Morland looked a little astonished at the bitterness of 
 the General's tone. 
 
 " But I 've been hearing in Tennessee this winter that 
 you had made up with Clay and were on the most cordial 
 terms with him." 
 
 "I said 'How do you do' when I met him, and asked 
 for his wife; and he said 'How do you do' and asked for 
 my wife. We 've dined together at his lodgings, and then 
 we dined together at mine, and we shook hands when we 
 both dined at President Monroe's; that is the extent of 
 our cordial terms. I still think there is not much love 
 lost between us." 
 
 "Well, I 'm glad that you 're at least outwardly civil," 
 returned Morland. "Clay's a dog whose good-will is 
 much better to cultivate than his ill-will." And then he 
 went on with the freedom permitted him by old 
 friendship : 
 
 "I 've been, hearing, too, that you 've made it up with 
 Scott and Benton, and that, in fact, you were no longer 
 going around with a chip on your shoulder, and I was 
 particularly glad to hear it. Discretion is much the better 
 part of valour in a candidate for the Presidency." 
 
 The General smiled rather consciously. 
 
 "Oh, I 'm not quite a candidate yet, only an 'aspirant' 
 is what they call me. I know my change of attitude 
 toward Clay and Benton is attributed by them and by 
 
70 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 others to political cunning, but I 'm not sure politics had 
 anything to do with it. I rather think I 'm growing 
 more amiable as I grow older, and that chip you accuse 
 me of has become a burden; I 'm glad to get rid of it. 
 None the less, if they try any of their underhand tricks 
 on me they will find the old war-horse is only dozing and 
 still has fight in him." 
 
 "I don't doubt that," said Morland laughing, and 
 turned to his paper as the General picked up his pen 
 and slowly and laboriously went on with his writing. 
 
 It was indeed to be a grand party at Mrs. Adams's, and 
 all Washington had been on the qui vive about it for 
 weeks. The large double house on F Street had been 
 for days the centre of happy bustle and confusion. Two 
 young ladies were visiting Mrs. Adams, the Misses 
 Hellen, and with the two young sons of the house, Greorge 
 and John, had devoted themselves to the arduous task 
 of decorating the rooms with garlands of evergreen and 
 tissue-paper roses. 
 
 The effect was especially gorgeous in the great ball- 
 room on the second floor. The pillars were twined with 
 laurel and wintergreen, everywhere wreaths of cedar 
 and roses interspersed with small variegated lamps, 
 and from the centre of the room hung a great lustre 
 glittering with crystal and hundreds of wax tapers. 
 But the floor was the triumph of art. It was chalked 
 all over with spread eagles done in red, white, and 
 blue chalk, and before the entrance-door in a great 
 semicircle were the words "Welcome to the Hero of 
 New Orleans." 
 
 Seldom had Washington seen anything so elaborate 
 
JOHN MORLAND 71 
 
 in decoration, and never a more brilliant company than 
 gathered around Mr. and Mrs. Adams, President Monroe, 
 and General Jackson, as they stood together receiving 
 the guests who thronged the glittering ball-room; the 
 old hero looking almost handsome, certainly distinguished, 
 as he stood beside Mrs. Adams with his genial smile 
 receiving the salutations of the arriving guests. 
 
 Behind the receiving party, and in glittering contrast 
 to the soberness of their costumes, stood a semicircle of 
 distinguished officers, senators, and members of the diplo- 
 matic corps. The officers were in full-dress uniforms 
 gay with gold-lace and buttons; the members of the 
 diplomatic corps wore the gorgeous regalia of their various 
 courts blazing with jewelled orders; and those who had 
 no uniforms in which to deck themselves were brave in 
 the tightest of small-clothes, silk stockings and pumps 
 with glittering buckles, or Hessian top-boots decorated 
 with heavy gold cord and tassels, coats of claret or 
 green or blue cloth studded with gilt buttons, two or three 
 waistcoats of contrasting colors, and voluminous neck- 
 cloths of finest cambric ruffling into the waistcoats. No 
 ball-room of to-day could vie with it in gorgeous 
 colouring. 
 
 Morland, who had accompanied the General to Mrs. 
 Adams's, stood a little at one side of the semicircle, watch- 
 ing the arrivals and listening to the comments of Mrs. 
 Madison who stood beside him. Most of the company 
 were well known to him, but there had been of course 
 new arrivals in Washington in the last two years, and 
 Mrs. Madison knew them all and had a spicy word of 
 compliment or criticism for each. 
 
 "Here come our three Nestors," she exclaimed as three 
 
72 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 striking figures entered arm in arm. "They are a trio for 
 any country to be proud of!" 
 
 Morland agreed with her and they silently watched 
 Hayne, the youthful and distinguished Senator from South 
 Carolina, Wirt, the learned and handsome Attorney- 
 General, and the regal Webster approach the receiving 
 party and make their formal bows. i 
 
 "I wonder at the friendship between Webster and 
 Hayne," said Mrs. Madison. "They seem to me to have 
 no interests in common; they are always on opposing 
 sides in every question." 
 
 Hayne had entered the Senate just as Morland was 
 leaving Washington for his two years' absence, but Mor- 
 land had watched his career closely through the news- 
 papers, and there was no man whose personality interested 
 him more keenly. 
 
 "I don't believe it could be called friendship," he 
 replied to Mrs. Madison, "so much as mutual admiration. 
 They are somewhat of the same calibre, though Webster 
 is such a giant, intellectually, he dwarfs every man that 
 comes near him." 
 
 The three men had separated after lingering for a 
 moment talking with Jackson, and now Hayne approached 
 Mrs. Madison, who was, indeed, holding almost as much 
 of a levee as the receiving party proper. 
 
 "We were just saying, Mr. Hayne," said Mrs. Madison 
 with the gentle audacity that was always one of her charms, 
 "that it was difficult to understand the attraction Massa- 
 chusetts seems to have for South Carolina." 
 
 "Meaning Webster for Hayne, I suppose," said the 
 Senator smiling. " I have certainly the highest admiration 
 for Mr. Webster, madam. I have never heard him utter 
 
JOHN MORLAND 73 
 
 a word in a careless or vulgar style, and he never seems 
 to forget his own dignity or to be unmindful of the char- 
 acter or the feelings of others." 
 
 It was a noble tribute from such a man, and when a 
 few minutes later Hayne had moved on and Webster 
 had taken his place at Mrs. Madison's side she could not 
 forbear repeating it to him. 
 
 "I am greatly gratified at such words from such a 
 man," said the great New Englander, "but let me say, 
 Mrs. Madison, I could not so cleverly or so accurately 
 have painted Hayne's own portrait as he has done in his 
 own words." 
 
 " Ah, I see it 's exactly as Senator Morland says, a 
 mutual-admiration society; and just as I have always 
 maintained, admiration depends for its existence on good 
 looks, good manners and good morals, and has nothing 
 whatever to do with views or opinions or even principles." 
 
 "You must be right, as you always are," said Webster 
 genially, "for no two men could be farther apart as a rule 
 in their views than Hayne and myself." 
 
 Mrs. Madison hardly heard his last words, for she 
 had caught sight of a towering figure just entering the 
 room that interested her greatly, and barely had Webster 
 finished speaking when she exclaimed with great vivacity : 
 
 "Here he comes at last! I was not sure he would 
 come at all, and I 'm dying to see how Jackson receives 
 him." 
 
 " Oh, did n't you know that Jackson had made it up 
 with the General?" asked Webster, following Mrs. 
 Madison's eyes and seeing of whom she spoke. "They 
 had a formal reconciliation a few weeks ago. Am I not 
 right, Mr. Morland?" 
 
74 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 "Yes," returned Morland, "I think, as General Jackson 
 himself says, he is growing amiable as he grows older. 
 I believe he has made up most of his old quarrels since he 
 took his seat in the Senate in December. But, Mrs. 
 Madison," he added, turning eagerly to her, "can I 
 believe my eyes? Is that Mrs. Decatur on General 
 Scott's arm?" 
 
 "Yes," said Mrs. Madison smiling a little, for she readily 
 understood why Morland should be so incredulous, 
 "that is Mrs. Decatur, and do they not make the most 
 striking couple in the room? No one could be quite so 
 magnificent as the General, and no woman so beautiful 
 or distinguished-looking as Mrs. Decatur." 
 
 " You are right about the General," said Webster. 
 "America has seldom produced so majestic a presence. 
 But there are others," bowing gallantly to Mrs. Madison, 
 "who could rival Mrs. Decatur, beautiful and accom- 
 plished as she is." 
 
 "But," interposed Morland, still perplexed, "when I 
 left Washington she was in the very depths of woe over 
 that fatal duel. I never expected to see her in society 
 again." 
 
 "I believe," said Mrs. Madison, "that Mrs. Decatur 
 has never ceased and never will cease to mourn the 
 Commodore, but she only withdrew from society for a 
 few months, and since her return she has taken Kalorama 
 and entertains magnificently. Of course she has been 
 criticised but I rather admire her independence." 
 
 They were watching the two distinguished figures 
 who had now approached the receiving party. There 
 was no handshaking at that time in Washington on 
 such occasions, and Mrs. Decatur was making a succession 
 
JOHN MORLAND 75 
 
 of sweeping curtsies, and the General very grand and 
 stately bows. 
 
 "He certainly has the grand manner appropriate to 
 his presence," laughed Webster. "I don't believe that 
 General Washington himself was courtlier. But he 's 
 a dogmatic, disputatious fellow, too, and he does hate 
 to lose at cards, and has always all kinds of queer excuses 
 to explain why he loses. We were at dinner at Mrs. 
 Decatur's last night, and after dinner we had whist, of 
 course, and the General was pitted against Clay. Clay 
 always wins, you know, but the General must make an 
 excuse, as usual, for losing. 'I had to get up and spit,' he 
 said with the most perfect gravity, ' and so I lost the run.' 
 We were all inwardly convulsed but the General was as 
 serious as if he were explaining a failure in a military 
 manoeuvre, and no one dared smile." 
 
 Mrs. Madison and Morland laughed as heartily as 
 Webster and Mrs. Decatur's other guests had wanted 
 to, but had not dared, for they both knew how peculiarly 
 characteristic the anecdote was of the handsome, but 
 pompous, young General. 
 
 But Mrs. Madison could never hear a story without 
 being ready to cap it with another. 
 
 "He has about as much sense of humour as Mrs. 
 Clay," she said. "You heard how she replied to the 
 Boston lady who was frank enough to ask her if it did not 
 distress her to have her brilliant husband gamble? 
 'Sometimes, yes,' said Mrs. Clay seriously, 'but really, 
 you know, he almost always wins.' " 
 
 "Now I call that the most delicious kind of humour," 
 said Webster interrupting the laugh with which he and 
 Morland had greeted Mrs. Madison's story. " I am sure 
 
76 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 I would never have dreamed Mrs. Clay equal to anything 
 so delicate and so keen." 
 
 "Possibly you 're right," returned Mrs. Madison, "and 
 it may be that Mrs. Clay is a wit of the highest order. 
 But, Major Morland," turning excitedly to him, "here 
 come two people I am sure you are interested in." 
 
 Morland had seen them before Mrs. Madison spoke. 
 In fact, he had been eagerly watching for them all the 
 evening. He would not have been certain of meeting 
 them at such a grand party as this but that Jackson had 
 told him that he had himself requested an invitation for 
 them from Mrs. Adams. He was curiously eager to see 
 Kitty. This was her first appearance in real "society" 
 in Washington, though she was well known to all the 
 young gallants, and to many of the older ones from her 
 daily walks abroad with Miss English's young ladies, 
 her weekly appearance at St. John's, and her yearly 
 triumphs at the May Festival. 
 
 The picture that Morland held in memory of her was 
 the picture of the lovely child as she appeared at the 
 dancing-school at Brown's in Georgetown, and of the 
 same lovely face, tear-stained and woe-begone, in Mrs. 
 McCabe's parlour on the night of the attempted elope- 
 ment. He was not prepared for the radiant beauty that 
 burst upon him as his eyes fell upon Kitty and her mother, 
 and it was evident from the hush and subdued murmur 
 that accompanied the progress of the two stately women 
 through the room that Washington society was hardly 
 prepared for it either. Enchanting as Kitty was bound 
 to be in street dress or church dress, as Washington was 
 accustomed to see her, Kitty in evening dress was divine. 
 The two, mother and daughter, might have been sisters 
 
JOHN MORLAND 77 
 
 as, almost of the same height, they rather floated than 
 walked down the long room, the two heads, one brown 
 the other golden, borne proudly on slender white necks 
 with the same stately grace, like lilies on their slender 
 stalks. 
 
 Mrs. McCabe's beauty could never grow old for it 
 was of that spiritual order hardly affected by the passing 
 years, and with so little of the earthly about it that, 
 though men had always sought her and worshipped her, 
 there had never been a breath to tarnish her name in a 
 capital the most eagerly scandal loving of its day. But 
 Kitty was of a different type. Her height, her stately 
 grace and noble bearing were her mother's, but all her 
 other charms were from her Irish blood. Her mother 
 had the pale gold and rose of the English beauty; Kitty's 
 beauty was darker, more vivid, more glowing. Not so 
 slender as her mother, the noble lines of her figure dis- 
 closed the luxuriant womanhood into which she had 
 blossomed. From the white nape of her slender neck 
 her chestnut hair waved abundantly, with touches of 
 burnished gold in its highlights, to the very crown of her 
 dainty head. Its crispness and luxuriance bespoke 
 the wonderful vitality that breathed from Kitty like a 
 sensible emanation, and was so largely responsible for 
 her magnetic personality. It breathed in the glowing 
 glances of her eyes, of so dark and rich a gray they were 
 often taken for black; in the thick and curling lashes that 
 veiled them; in the vivid white and rose of her cheek, 
 mingled with a cunning no art could imitate; in the 
 delicious curves of her scarlet lips and, most of all, in the 
 rich and ardent tones of her voice that had caught just 
 enough of the Irish inflections to make it adorable. 
 
78 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 There was nothing spirituelle in Kitty's beauty; it was 
 all human, generous, ardent, bewitching, irresistible; 
 and alas it was of the kind to make her more foes than 
 friends in a coldly carping world. 
 
 Morland's first glance at all this radiant beauty had 
 a very unexpected effect upon him. For a moment he 
 experienced a thrill closely akin to that he had felt when 
 Kitty's arms had been ardently thrown around his neck 
 on the night of the elopement. The thrill was suc- 
 ceeded by an anxious self-consciousness that was not an 
 habitual experience with him. There was an air of 
 matured womanhood about Kitty that had occasioned 
 the unexpected thrill, but it was her effect of glowing youth 
 that produced the self-consciousness. He glanced anx- 
 iously into a tall pier-glass near him to see whether his 
 thirty-four years sat heavily on him. He was not a man 
 much given to considering his personal appearance, yet 
 no doubt he had his share of vanity, and his stealthy glance 
 at his own reflection reassured him. There were no 
 streaks of gray in the waves of thick brown hair; the eyes, 
 a dark blue, were keen and bright with a peculiarly level 
 glance from beneath straight brows; and, for the rest of 
 his face, the chin was strong and the other features clearly 
 cut. But he was really quite struck with something his 
 fleeting glance in the glass had shown him. Little 
 attention as he had paid to clothes, between his tailor 
 and his own naturally erect and graceful figure he might 
 have passed for the glass of fashion; the swallowtail 
 skirts of his coat of fine blue cloth very long, the waist 
 very short with wide rolling collar and buttons of heavy 
 gilt, his two waistcoats, which his tailor had insisted 
 upon his wearing out of deference to the prevailing style. 
 
JOHN MORLAND 79 
 
 one bu£P the other a light gray, crossed by a regulation 
 watch chain of heavy gold from which depended a mas- 
 sive fob of cut camelian, and all this magnificence sub- 
 dued by the soft frills of a fine white neckcloth. No 
 dandy in the room could be finer, and though Morland 
 was far from being or desiring to be a dandy, his feeling 
 himself as well dressed as the best had its usual effect 
 in restoring him to his ease. He no longer thought of 
 his own personal appearance, but had all his attention free 
 for Kitty. 
 
 It pleased him greatly to see how cordially Greneral 
 Jackson received his two old friends, and with what 
 maidenly sweetness and deference Kitty returned his 
 greeting. Nothing could be better than her manners, he 
 said to himself. If the President and Mr. and Mrs. 
 Adams were not quite so cordial as the General it was not 
 their way, perhaps, and there was nothing lacking of 
 courtesy in their reception of the two; and when they 
 had had, also, a distant and stately bow from the Secretary 
 of War and Mrs. Calhoun, standing in the glittering 
 semicircle behind the receiving party, Morland thought 
 Kitty might be considered as fairly launched in Washington 
 society. 
 
 That there might be no moment of awkwardness for 
 the two women he hastened forward, as their formal 
 salutations were finished, to offer an arm to each, 
 intending to introduce them to such of his friends 
 as he thought might prove desirable acquaintances; for, 
 being rich, good-looking, and a bachelor to boot, he was 
 a general favourite in Washington, and he knew Mrs. 
 McCabe's circle of acquaintances must be necessarily a 
 limited one. 
 
80 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 But he had no chance to put his amiable intentions 
 into practice, for he had barely time to exchange cordial 
 greetings with them when Kitty was surrounded by a 
 throng of young men, either claiming an acquaintance or 
 seeking an introduction, and all demanding a place on 
 her dancing card. Morland, who had been contemplating 
 with some satisfaction his r61e of patron, found himself 
 likely to be left out in the cold; and although he had come 
 to the ball with no intention of dancing it now began to 
 seem a serious matter to him if he could not have at least 
 one dance with Kitty. 
 
 He found a moment when the throng was a little less 
 pressing to prefer his request. Kitty hesitated, and 
 intimated, if she did not quite say it, that her card was 
 full. Unfortunately he had been so close at her side 
 that he could not help knowing from the testimony 
 of his own eyes that there was still one vacant place upon 
 it. Of course he was hurt by this irrefutable evidence 
 that Kitty did not want to dance with him, but no doubt 
 to Kitty's nineteen years he seemed an old fellow indeed 
 — a friend of her mother's to be treated with liking and 
 respect, but not one to whom she would readily relinquish a 
 dance so eagerly coveted by younger beaux. He withdrew 
 a little from Kitty and devoted himself more exclusively 
 to her mother. 
 
 From his post of observation, a little in Kitty's rear, 
 he now began to notice frequent and anxious glances, 
 only half veiled, directed by her sometimes toward the 
 throng surrounding General Jackson, sometimes toward 
 the stream of newly arriving guests still entering the 
 ball-room. Kitty was evidently on the watch for some 
 one who had not yet appeared and for whom she was 
 
JOHN MORLAND 81 
 
 reserving that vacant place on her card. Well, he would 
 keep on the watch too; as her mother's friend, and a sort 
 of self-constituted guardian to Kitty it behooved him to 
 know who had already secured for himself such a place in 
 her interest. 
 
 He began to fear it might be Montclair, for Montclair 
 had not yet appeared in the ball-room. A little later 
 his suspicions were confirmed. Montclair entered, 
 resplendently arrayed in coat and small-clothes of claret- 
 coloured cloth, three waistcoats, yellow, green and mode 
 colour, and curled and perfumed to the last degree. It 
 was nine o'clock when he entered the room, an unheard- 
 of hour for Washington, but Montclair had carefully 
 timed his entrance to produce the greatest effect. All 
 eyes were turned on him as he made his bows to the 
 General and his party, those who did not know him 
 admiring him and taking him to be some one of distinction; 
 those who knew him, and they were a very large majority of 
 those present, not admiring him so much, but taking 
 careful note of his dress as one on whom they could rely to 
 show them the latest and most pronounced styles. 
 
 Morland's eyes were on him for neither of these rea- 
 sons, but because he did not intend to let any glance or 
 any movement of Montclair's escape him; and he was 
 repaid for his espionage by seeing the moment when 
 Montclair's eyes first fell on Kitty and the effect she 
 produced upon him. He started noticeably, coloured, 
 and then, apparently taking some distinct resolution, 
 assumed the air of easy confidence belonging to an avowed 
 lady-killer and strolled leisurely toward her. Morland 
 had known nothing of the snub Kitty had once adminis- 
 tered to Montclair, and so did not know that he was 
 
82 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 about to perpetrate a very bold piece of efFronteiy, and 
 noting the signs of confusion with which Kitty had first 
 recognized Montclair's intention, he had now no doubt 
 that it was for him she had been saving that dance. 
 
 By the time Montclair was ready to make his bow to 
 Kitty she had quite recovered from her confusion and 
 quite determined upon her course. She would not again 
 cut him in pubHc, she would do nothing to draw attention 
 to their relations to each other. Therefore she curtsied 
 low in response to his elaborate bow, and said quite 
 sweetly, "You are late, Mr. Montclair," purposely, though 
 apparently unconsciously, allowing him a glimpse of 
 her card and its one vacant space. 
 
 " But not too late, I see, to claim a dance from the most 
 beautiful creature in the room," returned Montclair 
 gallantly, lifting her card as he spoke to write his name 
 on it. 
 
 "Oh, I am afraid you are a little too late for that, 
 if it's me you mean by such a description," she 
 said calmly. 
 
 "You must know the description is true of no other, 
 Kitty," he returned in a low tone, so low as intended to 
 have the air of being on familiar terms; and then, a little 
 louder: 
 
 " But you are mistaken — there is still one dance left." 
 
 "Oh, that!" said Kitty, taking the card in her hand. 
 She turned toward Morland just behind her, handing him 
 the card with her sweetest smile: 
 
 "Major Morland, this must be your dance; you forgot 
 to put down your name." 
 
 Morland was bewildered, but there was nothing for 
 him to do but iHScribe his name and hand Kitty back 
 
JOHN MORLAND 83 
 
 her card; all of which he did very gravely and wondering 
 within himself what Kitty could be about. 
 
 Harold Montclair seemed to understand what she was 
 about very well. He did not believe Morland had ever 
 asked for a dance. To him, as to Kitty, he seemed quite 
 too old to be thinking of dances with pretty young girls. 
 He believed Kitty was only administering another snub, 
 and had used the freedom she felt with an old family 
 friend in asking Morland to write his name on her card. 
 He was not suffering that degree of embarrassment in 
 Morland's presence that might have been expected had 
 he known who had put him to flight on the night of the 
 elopement; but he was sure the Major could not but 
 understand that a snub was intended, and that was 
 enough to put the young coxcomb sadly out of counte- 
 nance in the presence of one of Washington's most 
 dignified and distinguished young Senators. He stam- 
 mered some kind of formal regrets and extricated 
 himself from Kitty's sharp little claws as soon as pos- 
 sible, mentally registering a vow never to put himself 
 in her power again. 
 
 Kitty's eyes were dancing at the success of her little 
 scheme to discomfit Montclair without apparent intention, 
 and Morland saw that it was not Montclair she had been 
 looking for. He was grateful for that; he would have 
 been sincerely troubled if she had seemed to be still 
 deeply interested in him, but he could not refrain from 
 wondering who it could be if it were not Montclair, since 
 Kitty's glances still continued at intervals to rove over 
 the assembly with the eager look of one hoping for a long- 
 delayed arrival. 
 
 But the orchestra of eight pieces — so large for that 
 
84 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 time as to be recorded in the annals of the day — had been 
 for some minutes tuning up, and now the dancing began, 
 and Morland saw no more of Ejtty until the time for his 
 own dance. That is, he saw no more of her than did 
 many others who could not take their eyes from her as 
 she floated up and down the long ball-room, for she was 
 without doubt, as Montclair had said, the most beautiful 
 creature there, and by far and away the most graceful 
 dancer, and, flushed with the natural joy a young girl 
 feels in her triumphs at her first ball and at the adulation 
 showered upon her, she was like a bit of incarnate flame: 
 brilliant, scintillating, glowing, and drawing all eyes as 
 the candle draws the moth. 
 
 Morland had taken Mrs. McCabe across the room to join 
 the little coterie surrounding Mrs. Madison, by whom 
 she was welcomed with characteristic vivacity: 
 
 " I 've been telling these old beaux of mine, Mrs. 
 McCabe, to please recall the prophecy I made four years 
 ago when I crowned your beautiful daughter at Brown's. 
 I said then she would be a society queen some day, with 
 all the dandies in Washington dancing attendance on 
 her. I 'm quite proud of myself as Sibyl, for she is really 
 the most radiant creature I ever beheld. I think I shall 
 add another stanza to Mr. Agg's clever verses : 
 
 "Wend you to the ball to-night? 
 
 There you '11 find both wise and witty. 
 Lovely maidens sweet and bright. 
 Yet none can quite compare with Kitty." 
 
 Part of the applause from Mrs. Madison's little circle 
 was intended for the impromptu performance, but part 
 of it, also, was for the subject of her verse; all of which 
 
JOHN MORLAND 85 
 
 kindliness naturally put Mrs. McCabe much at her ease 
 and greatly pleased Morland. 
 
 He soon found that Mrs. McCabe required very little 
 attention from him, for she was immediately the centre of 
 a little circle of her own, with Clay and Benton as leading 
 figures in it; and even Randolph of Roanoke, rather 
 inclined to be churlish with women as a rule, and Secre- 
 tary Calhoun, who could be most charming socially when 
 he felt like it, stopping for a moment to pay her their 
 respects. Morland was at liberty to wander from one 
 group to another, as most of the men were doing, or to 
 stay where he was and devote himself to watching Kitty 
 and trying to decide whether he should claim that dance 
 or not, since it was evidently given to him merely to avoid 
 giving it to Montclair. 
 
 He had not come to any decision when the time for his 
 dance arrived, and there was nothing for him to do but 
 to go and claim his partner. 
 
 "Kitty," he said, as soon as he had her to himself, "I 
 understood how you came to give me this dance. I 'm 
 glad you would not dance with that fellow, but I 'm not 
 going to hold you to your dance with me if you would 
 rather have it with some one else." 
 
 Kitty looked up at him a little piqued. She had 
 liked very well to appear on the floor with the distin- 
 guished Senator Morland, since the man for whom 
 she had been reserving that dance had not made his 
 appearance. She knew very well that she would be the 
 envy of half the society belles of Washington and of 
 all their mothers. She answered him, therefore, a little 
 pettishly : 
 
 " Oh, of course if you do not care for the dance I will 
 
86 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 excuse you, though I 'm sorry you did not let me know 
 earher when I might have filled your place." 
 
 Morland recognized Kitty's pettishness, and only 
 smiled at it: 
 
 "It 's not too late, I fancy," he said. "I will take you 
 over to your mother, and the minute the beaux discover 
 you are disengaged they will be swarming around you 
 like bees about a flower." 
 
 "A wallflower!" retorted Kitty still pettishly, "and at 
 my first ball! No, Major Morland, I think I '11 hold you to 
 your engagement, much as you might like to be released 
 from it. It is too much to ask of me to submit to the 
 mortification of being handed over to the chaperons, 
 like that unattractive Miss Dayton!" 
 
 Morland thought he understood why Kitty was so 
 especially scornful of Miss Dayton: Montclair had 
 danced with her several times, and he was sorry to see 
 that Kitty cared. But he only said formally: 
 
 "Very well, then, I 'm delighted, of course." 
 
 Kitty had had a few misgivings as to how she and 
 Morland would manage their steps. She had never seen 
 him dance, and was quite sure he knew little or nothing 
 about it. She disliked an awkward partner, for she knew 
 she could not appear to advantage with one, and must in 
 a measure share his awkwardness, but she amiably 
 decided she would do her best to manage him and it 
 was honour enough to be "standing up" with Major 
 Morland since he had danced with no one else that 
 evening. 
 
 But to Kitty's amazement he needed no manage- 
 ment. She had had no partner whose step suited hers 
 so perfectly. Kitty loved the dance for its own sake, 
 
JOHN MORLAND 87 
 
 and to be whirling through the waltz, as one of the rhyme- 
 sters of the day described it, "like tops a-spinning" sent 
 her spirits to the highest point of exhilaration. 
 
 "It was the very best dance of the evening!" she 
 exclaimed fervently, as the music stopped and Morland 
 offered her his arm for a promenade around the ball- 
 room. And then, without giving him a chance to more 
 than bow his thanks, she asked suddenly: 
 
 "Major, can you tell me what that uniform means 
 that has just passed us?" 
 
 Morland turned to look. 
 
 "It means that the wearer of it is a lieutenant in the 
 navy," he answered. 
 
 "And are the navy officers as well received in society 
 as the army officers?" 
 
 "Quite. I believe the ladies affect them even more, 
 if possible." 
 
 "And are all the navy officers in Washington invited 
 to a ball like this?" 
 
 "Not necessarily all, if Mr. or Mrs. Adams does not 
 happen to know them; though I fancy most of them on 
 duty in Washington just now are here to-night. But 
 why are you so interested in the navy, Kitty? Do you 
 think their uniforms handsomer than the army? or do 
 you like the peculiar shade of bronze they get on their 
 cheeks, or the sea-stagger they affect when they walk on 
 land?" 
 
 They had been idle questions of his, but to his amaze- 
 ment Kitty coloured and hesitated as she answered: 
 
 " Oh, I don't think I 'm specially interested, but I have 
 never noticed them much until to-night." 
 
 And then, with evident relief; 
 
88 THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 
 
 " Here comes Mr. Laidley to take me down to supper, 
 and he 's just in time, for I 'm hungry as a bear. "Are 
 you going to take mother down. Major, or shall we go 
 and get her?" 
 
 " Oh, of course Grandpa Morland is going to take her 
 down," handing Kitty over to young Laidley, and laugh- 
 ing good-humouredly at the freedom with which she had 
 shoved her chaperon off on him, and not wholly displeased 
 with the liberties she took with him. 
 
 Kitty saw she was understood, but she was not 
 abashed. 
 
 "You 're a dear!" she murmured, with dancing eyes, 
 "and didn't we have a grand waltzl" 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 FOE WHOM KITTY WAS WAITING 
 
 I WONDER who Kitty was saving that dance for," 
 mused Morland, with more regard for italics than for 
 grammar, and with a perplexed line between his eyes. 
 
 He had seen Mrs. McCabe and Kitty to their carriage, 
 and now was standing outside in the cool night air for a 
 few minutes waiting until General Jackson should be 
 through with his good-byes to the last belated guests and 
 be ready to accompany him to Gadsby's. He was startled 
 by a voice almost in his ear; he had heard no step, but 
 he turned to find at his elbow a figure that he easily 
 recognized even in the dim light. 
 
 "I did not understand you, Mr. Montclair," he said 
 frigidly. 
 
 "I said that our friend Kitty was in fine feather to-night, 
 and looking very beautiful," repeated Montclair in a tone 
 of familiarity that struck unpleasantly on Morland's 
 ear. It grated sufficiently that the young coxcomb 
 should pretend to be on such easy terms with himself, 
 but the familiar way in which he spoke of Kitty was not 
 to be borne. He despised the fellow, yet in a more 
 guarded moment he would not have deemed it prudent 
 to let him know that he was acquainted with his youthful 
 intrigue with Kitty. Now, under the irritation of his 
 impertinence, he blurted out: 
 
 "I forbid you to speak that young lady's name in my 
 
 89 
 
90 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 presence, sir. I am perfectly aware that, but for a provi- 
 dential interference, three years ago, you would have 
 ruined her life and broken her mother's heart." 
 
 Montclair was aghast. He had believed up to this 
 time that no one but Kitty and her parents knew of the 
 attempted elopement, and that only Kitty knew with 
 whom it was attempted. He had believed this because 
 he had never heard a breath of it from any one, and he 
 was quite sure that had McCabe known his part in 
 it he would have called him to account at once. Now it 
 flashed over him that it was not Tim McCabe, as he 
 had always supposed, but Major Morland, that had 
 frustrated his designs and put him so ignominiously to 
 flight. Well, he owed the Major something for that, and 
 he would certainly pay it; now he could think of nothing 
 better to do or say than to mumble "Good-night, sir," 
 turn on his heel and walk away, leaving Morland in a 
 state of fuming indignation, almost as much with his own 
 stupidity as with Montclair's insolence. 
 
 But though Morland was much perplexed as to why 
 Kitty should be so anxiously looking for some one all 
 the evening who never came, it was a matter that admitted 
 of a very simple explanation if he had but known the 
 circumstances and remembered Kitty's ardent nature. 
 
 Kitty was still a pupil at Miss English's school, although 
 it was an almost unheard-of thing, at that day, for a girl 
 to remain in school until she was nearly nineteen. That 
 Kitty had remained there so long was due to no unusual 
 stupidity on her part, but to the fact that her mother did 
 not dare bring her home to the tavern surroundings. 
 She was, in fact, rather quicker than the average pupil, 
 and Miss English had found herself obliged to plan 
 
JOHN MORLAND 91 
 
 extra courses for her In literature, history, French, and 
 music to keep her employed. Kitty was in a fair way 
 to become a thoroughly accomplished young lady, and 
 in spite of her mischievous pranks, which she could no 
 more resist perpetrating than she could stop breathing, 
 and which were regularly found out and punished, she 
 was withal of so sweet and affectionate a nature that 
 she had greatly endeared herself to Miss English and her 
 teachers. She had now arrived at the dignity of being 
 regarded as a "parlour boarder," though under the 
 strictest surveillance, as every one must be in Miss English's 
 house, and as Miss English had every reason to believe 
 Kitty still deserved to be. That she was to be permitted 
 to attend Mrs. Adams's ball was due to a special request 
 to Miss English from General Jackson himself, who 
 greatly desired both his little pet and her mother to share 
 in his honours. She was to go home, and go with her 
 mother to the ball, and return with her and spend the 
 night at home. 
 
 As a result of this arrangement, at half -past three o'clock 
 on the afternoon of the ball Kitty, followed by a stout, 
 but comely negress, was slowly walking up Pennsylvania 
 Avenue toward McCabe's Tavern, on the slopes of 
 Capitol Hill. None of Miss English's young ladies 
 was ever permitted to walk on the streets unattended, 
 but it happened to be at an hour when the teachers who 
 could be spared for that duty were conducting the daily 
 procession of pupils about the quieter streets of Washing- 
 ton, and there was no one to attend Kitty but black 
 Dinah, arrayed in her spotless uniform of blue with 
 white facings and the snowiest of turbans. Black Dinah's 
 position in the school was that of official spy. It was 
 
92 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 her duty to report any Irregularity or any breach of de- 
 corum she might observe among the young ladies, and 
 she was usually very faithful to Miss English. But she 
 was not absolutely impeccable, and IQtty had more than 
 once won her over by bribes of fruit and sweetmeats taken 
 from those very baskets that Kitty had been discovered 
 letting down from her window to be filled by some ardent 
 lover below and drawn up to be secretly shared with her 
 less fortunate schoolmates who were loverless. 
 
 Now, Black Dinah was portly and must needs walk very 
 slowly; also, owing to Kitty's blandishments and, per- 
 haps, to a sneaking desire on her own part to see the gay 
 thoroughfare Dinah was permitting Kitty to walk on 
 the Avenue when a teacher or a sterner guardian would 
 have taken her by quieter streets. On two such apparently 
 insignificant accidents did Kitty's fate hang. For, if she 
 had not been on the Avenue, she would not have been in 
 the way to meet the handsome young naval officer galloping 
 gaily down it, or, if her companion had been able to walk 
 faster, Kitty would have been at home before Lieutenant 
 Sutherland turned on to the Avenue from the quiet street 
 leading to the navy yard. 
 
 Sauntering slowly along, trying to keep her pace down 
 to the tortoise-like one of Dinah, puffing respectfully a 
 few feet behind her, and amusing herself by watching 
 the equipages and the riders passing on the street, her 
 eyes lighted on an unusually attractive figure — a hand- 
 some young officer riding a spirited horse. At the same 
 moment his eye fell on Kitty, and he knew that though he 
 had been in Washington a week he had not yet seen any- 
 thing so bewitching as Kitty's glowing cheeks and spark- 
 ling eyes and bright chestnut curls under her little fur 
 
JOHN MORLAND 93 
 
 cap. He half reined up his horse to stop and look, but 
 remembering himself rode on. Kitty glanced over her 
 shoulder and met his backward glance. He turned his 
 horse and passed Kitty from behind, who vouchsafed 
 him only a glimpse of a rosy ear. A half-block further 
 on he turned again and rode down to meet her. This 
 time she looked up with a half-smile, as he passed and he 
 smiled broadly. Kitty no longer hurried Dinah, but her 
 own step grew sensibly slower. She would not turn to 
 look back again, but very soon she heard his horse's 
 hoofs in a swift gallop behind her — she could already 
 distinguish their sound from other horses on the Avenue. 
 Again he passed her and again he turned his horse to meet 
 her. This time he boldly lifted his hat, and Kitty bowed 
 in return, and the crisp January air could not entirely 
 account for the sudden roses that flamed in her cheeks, 
 nor for the added brilliance of her glowing eyes. 
 
 "Who was dat genelman, honey?" inquired Dinah, 
 who because of Kitty's very lingering steps was now close 
 at her ear. 
 
 "Oh, one of my friends," returned Kitty lightly, 
 thinking it no harm to swerve from the truth in talking 
 to a darky. 
 
 " He 'm shore nuff struck on yer purty face," Dinah 
 muttered, and looking back at the young ofiicer who had 
 again turned and was coming toward them, she shook her 
 head at him. He understood it as a danger signal and 
 so, this time, he did not pass Kitty, but kept close in the 
 rear, determined to follow her and find out where she 
 lived. 
 
 With the consciousness of his eyes upon her it was 
 difficult to keep all constraint out of her usually graceful 
 
94 THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 
 
 walk. Kitty began to grow very uncomfortable, and 
 again hurried Dinah into a pace that set her gasping for 
 breath as they turned from the Avenue into a side street 
 leading to her home. Still the horse's hoofs followed, 
 but she did not look back until she reached the very door 
 of the house. Then she turned, and in a flash the oflicer's 
 hat was off and he was bending low over the pommel of 
 his saddle. Kitty waved her hand in response and flung 
 him a radiant smile as she disappeared through the open 
 door. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 DINAH IS FAITHLESS 
 
 T^ITTY had thought the Lieutenant would certainly 
 ■■■^ be at the ball, and she was quite determined to 
 keep at least one dance open for him, for she was sure he 
 would find some means of procuring an introduction to 
 her; and it had been so keen a disappointment to her not 
 to see him there that it had quite tempered the triumphs 
 of the evening for her. She had not recognized his rank, 
 for she was not very familiar with the uniforms of the 
 navy, but she had recognized that the officer passing her 
 in her promenade with Major Morland was wearing one 
 exactly like the one worn by the young oflBcer on horse- 
 back who had followed her that afternoon, which 
 accounted for her eager questioning of Morland. 
 
 On the evening after the ball Kitty was back in her old 
 place at Miss English's. It was the recreation hour 
 immediately following dinner, and most of the girls were 
 in the study hall listening to Kitty's recital of the splendours 
 of Mrs. Adams's ball, when Miss English herself appeared, 
 a signal for instantaneous silence on the part of the girls 
 who had been questioning Kitty, but not for the audacious 
 Kitty herself. Her back was half-turned to the door by 
 which Miss EngHsh had entered, and so she could easily 
 be supposed not to have seen her. But not one of the 
 girls for a moment supposed It, since they could plainly 
 see the mischievous twinkle in Kitty's eye. 
 
 95 
 
96 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 "And girls," in her clear musical tones that had an 
 unusual carrying quality, and with more italics than 
 Kitty ordinarily indulged in, "I was the only one he 
 danced with. The society belles were all Tmdly jealous, 
 but I know he only danced with me to inquire after Miss 
 English. You know he worships her " 
 
 Here she broke off abruptly and in well-simulateid 
 confusion, as having just discovered Miss Enghsh, curtsey- 
 ing low and making many humble apologies. 
 
 Miss English took no notice of the apologies. She 
 could see from the suppressed smiles of the girls that it 
 was only another piece of Kitty's mischief, and to ignore 
 it was the way to make it most ineffective. 
 
 "Kitty," she said abruptly, "do you know a Lieutenant 
 Sutherland?" 
 
 Kitty's first impulse was to say "No, ma'am," and her 
 rosy lips had half formed the "No" when a sudden idea 
 flashed into her quick brain. Doubtless that was the name 
 of the handsome officer who had followed her the day 
 before. Doubtless also he had come to call, and should 
 she say "no" she would not only lose her chance of ever 
 knowing him, but, what was worse, she would disgrace 
 him, as seeking to call on a young lady to whom he had 
 no proper introduction. Kitty was not at all indignant 
 with him for being so presumptuous. She was charmed 
 with his audacity; it exactly suited her schoolgirl ideas 
 of romance and her Irish love of boldness. 
 
 "Yes, ma'am," she answered, after a scarcely per- 
 ceptible moment of hesitation, but she could not prevent 
 a wave of colour sweeping her cheeks as she spoke. 
 
 Miss English was suspicious of that sudden rush of 
 colour, but Kitty, as parlour boarder, had certain privileges. 
 
JOHN MORLAND 97 
 
 "Very well, then," she said, "he has never called here 
 before, and I do not know him, but he is in the parlour, 
 and if you say it is all right you may go down and 
 see him." 
 
 For a few minutes Kitty was a prey to the most delight- 
 ful tremors of anticipation, such as her soul loved. 
 Here was a real adventure; and how bold and how ardent 
 must the Lieutenant be to have followed her up so quickly. 
 He was a hero after her own heart. Her ardent and mer- 
 curial temper was all aflame. None the less did she 
 determine that the Lieutenant, for the first few moments, 
 at least, should find her all ice. 
 
 It was a regulation of Miss English's school that her 
 young ladies should appear at the five-o'clock dinner 
 fully dressed for the evening, and therefore, save for a 
 fleeting glance into the glass to see that her curls were 
 in order, Kitty had to pay no attention to her toilet, and 
 descended to the parlour immediately. In a mirror 
 that commanded, through the open doorway, a view of 
 the grand staircase, the Lieutenant caught a glimpse of 
 her slowly descending the stairs, her arms extended above 
 her head, lightly shaking her hands and fingers. The 
 Lieutenant had sisters and he smiled, for he understood 
 the trick very well. It was a period when white hands 
 were much prized, and it was a universal practice with the 
 belles of the day to descend the staircase as Kitty was 
 descending it, when about to meet some one on whom 
 they specially desired to make an impression. The Lieu- 
 tenant understood that the blood flowing down from the 
 uplifted hands was supposed to leave them, for a time at 
 least, in that greatly to be desired state of supreme 
 whiteness. 
 
98 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 Kitty was not aware that the mirror commanded her 
 descent of the staircase, and so she did not understand 
 the Lieutenant's only half-suppressed smile of amusement 
 struggling for mastery with a very commendable sense of 
 embarrassment as he made his low bow. It angered her 
 for a moment, for she thought the Lieutenant was regard- 
 ing her as too willing, and anger lent stateUness to her 
 curtsey and hauteur to her voice. 
 
 "To what am I indebted for the honour of this visit, 
 sir ?" she demanded icily, but in a tone low enough not to 
 be overheard should there be spies near by. The Lieu- 
 tenant was brought to his senses at once and was all 
 gravity. 
 
 "You must know. Miss McCabe, that having once 
 seen you I could no more keep away than the moth from 
 the star," he said ardently. 
 
 His answer pleased Kitty as exactly proper to the r6le 
 she had assigned him in her thoughts. In a slightly 
 mollified tone she went on: 
 
 "And I cannot understand how you knew my name, 
 or where I was to be found." 
 
 "I would have moved heaven and earth to discover 
 both," returned the Lieutenant. "But when I followed 
 you home yesterday I knew at once you were the beautiful 
 Kitty McCabe of whose charms I have been hearing con- 
 stantly ever since my arrival in Washington a week ago. 
 I called on your father this afternoon, and having satisfied 
 him that I was in every way a proper acquaintance for his 
 daughter was directed here." 
 
 Kitty hardly knew whether to be more pleased or 
 vexed. It was all very well for her to be willing and 
 ready to enter into a little flirtation with the handsome 
 
JOHN MOELAND 99 
 
 oflBcer, but she would have liked her father to be a little 
 more difficult. She knew that the fathers of the Benton 
 girls or the Lees or Calhouns would not so easily have 
 granted a perfect stranger's request to call upon their 
 daughters; and she recognized at once that the Lieutenant 
 had made an easy conquest of her father through his 
 vanity, and was expecting to make as easy a conquest of 
 the daughter by the same means. She did not have 
 it in her heart to snub him entirely, and so put an end to 
 this pretty little romance, but she should punish him a 
 little for his too great confidence. 
 
 "I see, sir," she said with light irony, "you are one of 
 those very proper young men who believe, in order to 
 recommend themselves to the daughters, it is only neces- 
 sary to recommend themselves to the fathers; and who 
 think so well of themselves that they are as sure of pleasing 
 the one as the other." 
 
 Kitty well knew that to the ordinary gay Lothario 
 nothing could be more galling than to be considered 
 "proper." The Lieutenant was not different from his 
 kind. He was silent a moment while the dull red of 
 anger slowly mounted to his temples; then he murmured: 
 
 "Miss McCabe has many weapons. Her tongue can 
 wound as cruelly as her eyes." 
 
 "But neither fatally," laughed Kitty, who at the signs 
 ob the Lieutenant's discomfiture had quickly relented. 
 " And to show you that I am not really unkind, will you be 
 seated, sir?" 
 
 She led the way as she spoke to the corner of the room 
 most remote from the folding doors which opened back- 
 ward into a second parlour. A slight rustle had assured 
 her quick ears that Aunt Dinah had entered the second 
 
100 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 parlour and was at this moment taking her seat on the 
 stool always standing behind one of the folding doors 
 ready for her occupancy. The Lieutenant had not 
 heard the rustle and knew nothing of the custom at Miss 
 English's of having Aunt Dinah always on the watch 
 when young men were in the parlour, and his spirits rose 
 with Kitty's return to kindness. He was a Southerner, 
 as Kitty had at once guessed from his soft inflections and 
 his headlong ardour, and he began at once with all his 
 native audacity and with more assurance than he had 
 yet felt. 
 
 "Ah, Miss McCabe, from the moment when you smiled 
 on me so kindly yesterday afternoon I have been sure 
 you were no less amiable than you were beautiful; but 
 had I been assured of only unkindness and cruelty at your 
 hands I yet could not have resisted seeking you. I throw 
 myself on your mercy, for I am sure you are too generous 
 to take advantage of my unarmed and defenseless state." 
 
 This was exactly the kind of speech Kitty was accus- 
 tomed to and knew how to meet. She was not going to 
 allow him to go too far, with Aunt Dinah on watch behind 
 the door, but she delighted in all games of skill and, most 
 of all, in that game of hearts which consisted in adroitly 
 leading on only to repulse or keep at a distance with still 
 greater adroitness. She did not for a moment suppose 
 the Lieutenant to be any more serious than she herself 
 was, but since her youthful affair with iMontclair she had 
 never seen any one who had attracted her so powerfully. 
 
 She had not quite counted on the effect of that attraction 
 in undermining her own defenses. But as the evening 
 went on and the Lieutenant grew more ardent, she found 
 it harder and harder to keep him within bounds, with her 
 
JOHN MORLAND 101 
 
 heart beating faster and her cheeks burning and her 
 eyes glowing in response to his tender speeches. She 
 forgot, at times, that Aunt Dinah was listening, but there 
 came a moment when she was sure he was on the point 
 of throwing himself upon his knees and making a formal 
 declaration. Ready as she was by this time to hear it, 
 indeed, ardently longing for it, she must stop it; she must 
 tell him about Aunt Dinah. But as the words of warning 
 were on the very tip of her tongue there came an unmis- 
 takable sound from behind the folding door. 
 
 "What is that!" exclaimed the Lieutenant, aghast, and 
 springing to his feet in his excitement. 
 
 The exaggerated dismay depicted on the Lieutenant's 
 countenance at such a rude interruption of his tender 
 avowals, together with the regularity and increasing 
 violence of the sounds themselves, were too much for 
 Kitty's mirth-loving nature and she could not reply, she 
 was in such silent convulsions of suppressed laughter. 
 The Lieutenant was rapidly growing angry; this was 
 no time for mirth, nor, indeed, did Kitty herself think so; 
 but she was only a giggling school-girl and must needs 
 laugh at the most inopportune moment. 
 
 "Aunt Dinah has gone to sleep," she managed to 
 gasp at last, and the Lieutenant looking still more mysti- 
 fied, she controlled her laughter and explained soberly 
 enough that Aunt Dinah was always stationed behind 
 the door when young gentlemen were present, a fact that 
 habitual callers at the house knew and regulated their 
 words and actions accordingly. She had always sus- 
 pected, she said, that Aunt Dinah indulged herself in 
 little naps in her dark comer, but she had never had any 
 audible proof of it before. 
 
102 THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 
 
 The Lieutenant seized on only two points in Kitty's 
 rather long explanation: Aunt Dinah's presence no 
 doubt had accounted for Kitty's keeping him at arm's 
 length so long, and — Aunt Dinah was no longer to be 
 feared. Nevertheless she might awake at any moment — 
 no time was to be lost. He dropped on one knee and 
 seized Kitty's hand, and, blushing and trembling between 
 fear and dehght, Kitty listened to a formal declaration 
 from the ardent Southerner more impassioned than she 
 had yet heard from any youthful lover. 
 
 To take her heart by storm was the way to win Kitty, 
 and by the time the soothing strains from behind the door 
 had ceased, and Kitty and the Lieutenant were warned 
 by the silence that Aunt Dinah was once more on guard, 
 the mischief was done: Kitty and Lieutenant Sutherland 
 were "engaged," and Kitty's inflanmiable heart was for 
 the time at least as wildly in love as the Southerner's. 
 
 So great an evil will the slightest swerving from fidelity 
 often accomplish! For so much of Kitty's history and 
 Kitty's fate was Aunt Dinah's dropping to sleep at her 
 post for not longer than a quarter of an hour responsible! 
 
■pwrmr-mf-if Ti'ricry|ifif-n'n -firriini 
 
 "KITTY LISTENED TO A FORMAL DECLARATION FROM THE ARDENT 
 
 SOUTHERNER MORE IMPASSIONED THAN SHK HAD YET 
 
 HEARD FROM ANY YOUTHFUL LOVER" 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 A TELL-TALE WORD 
 
 TT WAS some days after Mrs. Adams' ball before Major 
 -*■ Morland found time to call on his old friends. On 
 asking for Mrs. McCabe, Tim himself ushered him into 
 her little parlour with an air of mingled importance and 
 mystery that Morland did not understand. 
 
 But it was quickly explained. Kitty was seated by 
 her mother sewing, looking more domestic and demure 
 than he ever remembered seeing her. This in itself was a 
 surprise, for he had understood that Kitty was still at school 
 at Miss English's. She seemed glad to see him, but she 
 blushed and looked conscious, which was not her usual 
 way of receiving his greetings, and which yet pleased him 
 greatly. 
 
 Mrs. McCabe was at a table cutting out white goods and 
 giving directions to two coloured women as to laces and 
 embroideries. There seemed to Morland a little embar- 
 rassment in her manner also, but he attributed it to the 
 rather unusual disorder of the room, and he made some 
 light questioning as to whether she had gone into the 
 dress-making business. At his speech Kitty gathered up 
 her work and slipped quietly from the room, and Mrs. 
 McCabe turned to the two negresses. 
 
 "Take your work up to Miss Kitty's room, Emmeline 
 and Caroline; she will show you about it," she directed. 
 
 Morland hastened to interpose: 
 
 103 
 
104 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 "I am afraid I am interfering with your work, Mrs. 
 McCabe. I will come at another time when it is more 
 convenient." 
 
 "Oh, but it is perfectly convenient now, and we are 
 delighted to see you," Mrs. McCabe declared. " You must 
 not think of going. I am glad to get this work out of my 
 parlour; I did not intend to have the girls stay in here, and 
 Kitty can show them about it quite as well as I." 
 
 " But I want to see Kitty, too," urged Morland. " And 
 how does she happen to be at home from school in the 
 middle of the week?" 
 
 By this time the two women, in spite of their slow move- 
 ments, had gotten themselves and their work out of the 
 room, and McCabe, bursting with importance and 
 impatience, turned to his wife. 
 
 "Will you annoimce our news to the Major, or shall I 
 Mrs. McCabe?" 
 
 Mrs. McCabe knew that her husband was dying to do 
 it himself, and for some reason she was as full of hesitation 
 as he was of eagerness. 
 
 "Oh, please, Tim, you do it," she begged, as if he 
 needed urging. 
 
 Tim waited for no further permission. 
 
 "Mrs. McCabe and I," he began, sen tentiously, "wish 
 to announce the approaching marriage of our daughter 
 Kitty to Lieutenant Sutherland of the ship Argus." 
 
 The effect of his announcement upon the major was 
 most gratifying to Tim. 
 
 "Kitty! Kitty to be married!" he stammered, turning 
 red and white and red again. "I cannot believe it! " 
 
 "There is nothing remarkable in such a fact," said Tim, 
 a little offended by Morland's concluding words. "She is 
 
JOHN MORLAND 105 
 
 of suitable age and not without sufficient charm to attract 
 a husband." 
 
 "But who is this Lieutenant Sutherland?" demanded 
 Morland, hardly attending to McCabe's words. "The 
 only Sutherland I know is a young fellow who has not been 
 in town more than ten days or two weeks; surely that has 
 not been long enough for a courtship." 
 
 "Quite long enough for the blind god to send a winged 
 shaft," said McCabe pompously. "I believe the Lieuten- 
 ant saw my daughter one day, called on her the next, 
 and they were engaged before the evening was over." 
 
 At that moment McCabe was called into his office, and 
 did not see the effect his words produced. His wife's 
 head was bent over her work, her fingers that held her 
 needle were trembling and her sweet face was suffused with 
 a painful colour. Morland was aghast. It seemed to him 
 inconceivable that, however rash Kitty might have been, 
 her parents should have allowed such precipitancy in a 
 matter of such vital importance. There was a moment of 
 silence after McCabe left the room before he could collect 
 himself sufficiently to speak. The sensation he was most 
 conscious of was anger toward Kitty's father and mother 
 that they could have encouraged her in, or even 
 permitted, such folly. The restraint he felt necessary 
 to put upon himself made his manner seem unusually 
 formal. 
 
 "You do not deny your husband's statement, madam, 
 and so I suppose it is correct ? " he queried. 
 
 Mrs. McCabe bowed. 
 
 "And you can reconcile it with your ideas of what is 
 right and proper to allow a young girl, a rash and foolish 
 young girl such as her best friends acknowledge Kitty to 
 
106 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 be, to contract such a solemn alliance with an entire 
 stranger ? I had thought more highly of you, madam ! " 
 
 Morland made a movement as if about to pick up his 
 hat and go, for Mrs. McCabe still sat with bent head and 
 without replying to him. But at his movement she rose 
 quickly from her chair, laid down her work, and came 
 toward him. 
 
 "Do not go. Major," she said in a low tone of earnest 
 entreaty. "I have wanted very much to see you and talk 
 with you." She took a seat so near him as to permit her 
 to go on without raising her voice : 
 
 "You cannot think this matter more rash, more pre- 
 cipitate, more ill-advised than I have thought it. Tim is 
 sometimes as rash as my little Kitty. When he told me 
 that he had given permission to a young naval ofScer, a 
 perfect stranger, to call upon Kitty at Miss English's, I 
 was very sorry and dreaded what might follow. But I 
 could not have looked for any results so quickly as they 
 came and so like a thunderbolt in their manner of coming. 
 The next morning at ten o'clock Kitty burst into my 
 parlour radiant with excitement. 
 
 "'I've come home to stay, mother,' she exclaimed 
 before she had hardly kissed me. 'Miss English does 
 not know it; she has only given me permission to come 
 and see you on a very important matter. But I want you 
 to send her a note right away to tell her, and send some 
 one for my things — I am going to be married!' 
 
 "You can imagine my consternation at such a speech. 
 I could not understand it at all, and Kitty was in such a 
 state of excitement it was difficult to get a straight story 
 from her. When I at last comprehended that the Lieuten- 
 ant had called the evening before, that before the evening 
 
JOHN MORLAND 107 
 
 was over he had proposed and been accepted, that he was 
 coming that afternoon to get our consent, and that Kitty 
 had hurried off in the morning to prepare the way for him 
 and to insure his success, I was aghast. I sent for Mr. 
 McCabe to come to my room at once, but no reasoning 
 with Kitty produced the shghtest effect. She was beyond 
 the reach of reason. I plead with her to put the Lieutenant 
 off until she should know him better and we could have a 
 chance to find out something of his antecedents. She was 
 obdurate, and I almost thought it an occasion for taking 
 sterner measures, for using our authority to at least post- 
 pone the engagement for awhile. The Lieutenant was com- 
 ing to ask Mr. McCabe's consent, it would be easy to with- 
 hold it for the present. But at the suggestion Kitty began 
 to storm and rage, and even threatened to run away again, 
 and her father weakened. I think he had been greatly 
 prepossessed in the young man's favour the day before, 
 and the fact that he was lieutenant on one of the finest 
 ships in the navy carried great weight with him. He 
 thought it rather a flattering prospect for the daughter 
 of a tavern-keeper, he said, though at that Kitty tossed 
 her head, for she has never allowed herself to feel on any 
 lower level of respectability than the daughters of the 
 senators and congressmen with whom she has associated, 
 and I have encouraged the feeling in her. I have believed 
 it was in itself a safeguard, and I have always taught her 
 that neither money nor social position were what really 
 counted, but what we are ourselves. I was still uncon- 
 vinced, but at last my husband used an argument that 
 moved me. Kitty's career at Miss English's has been a 
 stormy one, and it has only been through Miss English's 
 real liking for her that she has kept her place there. We 
 
108 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 have often feared a repetition of the Montclair affair, but 
 we have both always believed that Kitty, once safely 
 married to the right kind of man, would make a devoted 
 wife and an admirable woman. Mr. McCabe insisted 
 that here was her chance; she was of age and we must 
 give it to her. And so," said Mrs. McCabe, looking 
 timidly and half imploringly at Morland, "I gave a reluc- 
 tant consent, and I am praying that it may all be for the 
 best, and our little Kitty will settle down and become all 
 that we most ardently long for her to be. She will be mar- 
 ried in three weeks." 
 
 Morland had not lifted his eyes during the long recital. 
 He sat with folded arms, his chin resting on his breast. 
 Nor did he move from his position for a long minute after 
 Mrs. McCabe had finished speaking. At last he lifted his 
 head. 
 
 "And what do you think of the young man now that you 
 have seen him; for I take it that of course you have?" 
 His manner of making his query was much the manner of 
 a judge cross-examining a prisoner at the bar, and Mrs. 
 McCabe smiled a little. But she could make allowance 
 for his dazed condition. 
 
 " Oh, yes, we see him every day," she answered. " He is 
 very prepossessing. He is good-looking, seems honest and 
 amiable, and is without doubt extravagantly in love with 
 Kitty — he 's a Southerner, you know — and he treats 
 Kitty's parents with a pretty deference that goes far toward 
 winning our liking." 
 
 "Oh, of course he 's extravagantly in love with Kitty," 
 said Morland, answering only one part of Mrs. McCabe's 
 speech. "Any one in love with Kitty would always be 
 extravagantly in love with her, and his being a Southerner 
 
JOHN MORLAND 109 
 
 insures his being extravagantly in love with any one that 
 takes his fancy." 
 
 "You are a Southerner yourself, are you not?" asked 
 Mrs. McCabe smiHngly. 
 
 " Hardly. Not in the sense that a Virginian, a Georgian 
 or a Mississippian is a Southerner. But," and he seemed 
 at last to rouse himself fully from his dazed condition, " I 
 suppose it is no affair of mine, and if you and Tim are satis- 
 fied I ought to be. Tell Kitty I will come and see her very 
 soon to offer my congratulations. I must take a day or two 
 to get used to thinking of her as some other man's wife." 
 
 The word "other" had slipped from him inadvertently. 
 He blushed scarlet, seized his hat, and hurried from the 
 room with a silent bow to Mrs. McCabe. 
 
BOOK II 
 THE WIDOW SUTHERLAND 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 TROUBLE BEGINS 
 
 T^ ITTY was married, and a more radiant bride Wash- 
 ■■■ *• ington had never seen. 
 
 She had had a wedding journey in a coach and four down 
 through Virginia to the plantation where Lieutenant Suth- 
 erland's parents Uved. There for three weeks they had 
 been the centre of a round of festivities, beginning with the 
 grand "infare" given by the parents of the groom to all 
 the country-side, and returned by dances and dinners 
 given to the young couple by the neighbouring planters. 
 
 Kitty had seen but little of society, since she had been 
 closely kept in boarding-school, nor was her father's social 
 position of the kind to insure her many invitations in 
 Washington society had she been at home to receive them. 
 But Kitty was born to shine as a society queen. She took 
 all her new honours as naturally and gracefully as if she 
 had never known anything else, and brought to her plea- 
 sures the zest and keenness of enjoyment of an unjaded 
 appetite that were a powerful charm in themselves. 
 
 She came up to Washington fresh from the triumphs of 
 her honeymoon only to find new honours awaiting her. 
 Mrs. Sutherland, the wife of a lieutenant in the Navy, 
 who himself belonged to one of the old Virginia families, 
 was a personage of some consequence, taking a very dif- 
 ferent standing in society from little Kitty McCabe, the 
 daughter of an Irish inn-keeper. Kitty had been a care- 
 
 113 
 
114 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 less and light-hearted girl, and yet there had been times 
 when she had suffered from the contrast between her own 
 social position and that of the girls with whom she 
 was thrown at Mrs. English's, and to find herself now 
 their equal socially, and, indeed, from her rank as young 
 matron, taking precedence of them, filled her soul with 
 the keenest of joy. 
 
 But if Kitty had suffered a little and occasionally from 
 her social disabilities, Kitty's mother, who had been born 
 to a very different station in life from the one she was now 
 filling, had suffered keenly and always that her beautiful 
 child should be slighted by those she felt not half her 
 equals. It had been with many misgivings and a great 
 sinking of the heart that she had given her lovely daughter 
 to the handsome young lieutenant; but seeing her now so 
 radiantly happy, and taking the place in society she had 
 always coveted for her and believed rightfully belonged 
 to her, made the mother almost as radiantly happy as the 
 daughter. 
 
 She could not forbear expressing her satisfaction with 
 this state of affairs to Morland,who dropped in one evening 
 to cheer her in her loneliness; for he fancied she must be 
 suffering from her separation from Kitty, Or, perhaps 
 he only wanted to hear of Kitty and have a chance to talk 
 about her. 
 
 "You see. Major, it was all for the best," she said, with 
 a little smile that strove to conceal her elation. "Kitty 
 is where she belongs and where her father and I could not 
 have put her." 
 
 "And does that console you for losing your daughter?" 
 demanded Morland gruffly. "Mothers are strange 
 creatures." 
 
JOHN MORLAND 115 
 
 "I have not lost her," Mrs. McCabe objected gently. 
 " I see more of her than I have seen for many years. She 
 runs in on me every morning and takes me to drive or to 
 call with her in her carriage almost every afternoon, to 
 say nothing of our shopping expeditions together and our 
 visits to the Capitol. Indeed, I feel as if I had gotten back 
 my little girl of years ago whom I used to love and enjoy 
 without any fear or anxieties. I feel as safe and happy 
 about her as I used to feel when she was a child, always 
 playing about my room and hardly out of my sight all day." 
 
 "Yes, it appears to have turned out very well," Morland 
 granted unwillingly, and seemed half inclined to say more, 
 but checked himself. 
 
 What he had wanted to say was: "It is too soon to 
 judge — wait till you see what time will bring forth." 
 But although he was in a chronic state of unamiability 
 these days, he was really too kind-hearted to utter such cruel 
 words to the happy mother. He himself had grave doubts 
 as to Kitty's continued happiness, and he had, in his own 
 opinion, some foundation for his doubts. He had 
 opportimities of seeing Lieutenant Sutherland that Mrs. 
 McCabe, and not even Kitty herself, could have, and 
 it had seemed to the anxious Morland, almost as anxious 
 for Kitty's happiness as her mother, that the Lieutenant 
 sometimes drank more than was good for him and was 
 entirely too fond of the gaming-table. These were both 
 vices common enough in that day in Washington, and they 
 did not necessarily injure a man's reputation irreparably; 
 but Morland, though a Southerner, was abo somewhat of 
 a Puritan, and he could not believe a woman's happiness 
 to be perfectly secure in the hands of a man addicted to 
 either of these vices. 
 
116 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 Kitty had not seen as much of her husband's frailities as 
 had Morland, but she had seen a little of them, enough to 
 give her some uneasiness at times and cast a slight shadow 
 over the radiant and otherwise flawless honeymoon. 
 Twice at the Virginia parties it had seemed to Kitty he 
 had taken more wine than a gentleman should, and she had 
 remonstrated with him when she found herself alone with 
 him; but he was so repentant and so ready to make all 
 kinds of promises for the future, and accompanied his pro- 
 testations with such graceful endearments, she could not 
 but forgive him and believe in him. For he had all the 
 easy good-nature that usually accompanies such weak- 
 nesses, and he was infatuated with his beautiful wife. 
 
 They had been back in Washington about a month when 
 they received an invitation from Mrs. Decatur to dine at 
 Kalorama. Now, Mrs. Decatur's dinners were famous, 
 and an invitation to them stamped one with the hall-mark 
 of belonging to Washington's most exclusive set. After 
 an appearance at such a function Kitty's social road would 
 be made clear for her. No one need fear to show her any 
 attention, and everyone would probably hasten to do so if 
 she succeeded in proving herself a charming dinner guest. 
 
 There must be a new gown for such an occasion, for 
 Kitly's trousseau had been a modest one, owing partly to 
 the brief time allowed for its preparation, and she had 
 already appeared at least twice in every frock she owned. 
 Kitty was well aware that she had a reputation as a beauty, 
 and that it must be sustained by a proper regard for dress ; 
 for no one can be an acknowledged beauty and not dress 
 to suit the part. 
 
 She must consult her mother on a matter of such mo- 
 ment, for her mother's taste in dress was faultless, or at 
 
JOHN MORLAND 117 
 
 least Kitty considered it so. Her mother was as happy and 
 as excited over the invitation as Kitty; it was what she had 
 most coveted for her daughter, and together they planned 
 the costume and spent the mornings cutting and fitting 
 and sewing and directing the two coloured women who, 
 under Mrs. McCabe's tuition, had come to be almost as 
 skilful with the needle as herself. 
 
 They were happy mornings to Mrs. McCabe, mornings 
 tliat she often looked back upon as almost the happiest of 
 her life ; for as mother and daughter sat cosily chatting over 
 their work, there was no cloud on Kitty's brow, and she 
 was so radiantly happy she could talk of little beside her 
 husband and his virtues, the chief of which was his love 
 for her. 
 
 Kalorama, on the heights above Rock Creek, was the 
 most beautiful place in Washington, and Mrs. Decatur 
 the most charming hostess. One was sure of meeting there 
 all the distinguished people of the city by turns: foreign 
 ambassadors, senators, the famous men in the House, 
 members of the Cabinet, and army and navy officers of 
 rank. 
 
 On what ground Kitty was invited would have been 
 difficult to say, for her husband was hardly a man of 
 sufficient note to have secured her an invitation on his own 
 account. Mrs. McCabe always thought it was Morland's 
 doing, for Morland had been a warm personal friend of 
 Commodore Decatur's, and since his return to Washington 
 had renewed his friendship with the charming widow, and 
 was now one of the regular habitues of the house. 
 
 Dinner was set for six o'clock, an hour so late as to be 
 almost unheard of in Washington society, and people 
 
118 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 accused Mrs. Decatur of aping English styles in such a 
 daring innovation. It was now early in April, and at six 
 o'clock it was still daylight, and Kitty and her husband, 
 as they drove slowly up the winding road leading to 
 Kalorama, looked off at the sunset clouds gathering in the 
 west beyond Georgetown, and badk toward the east where 
 the white dome of the Capitol, standing high on its hill, 
 glistened in the last rays of the setting stin. And then they 
 looked at each other, and the two faces, endowed with 
 more than ordinary youthful beauty, shone with something 
 better than the sunset glow: a radiance from two yoimg 
 hearts beating fondly with young love. 
 
 "Ah, Kitty, I 'm not worthy of such a wife," said Suther- 
 land looking down on her tenderly. "I believe if I had 
 known you were half the angel you are I would never have 
 dared ask you to love me, and if you had known what a 
 poor stick I am you would never have dared take me." 
 
 Kitty looked up at him with shining eyes that spoke 
 love and devotion, but she answered him saucily: 
 
 "Well, then, I 'm glad that neither of us knew — are n't 
 you ? But I 'm such a silly little Kitty I 'm that proud of 
 you." And for the fraction of a second she let her cheek 
 nestle lovingly against his. But as he attempted to draw 
 her closer she sprang quickly away. 
 
 "Take care, sir, don't touch me!" she exclaimed in real 
 or pretended alarm. "You will muss my frock and crush 
 my feathers." 
 
 And with their faces still illuminated with the joy of 
 that ride together through the lovely spring evening they 
 entered the drawing-room where Mrs. Decatur was receiv- 
 ing her guests. 
 
 They were almost the last arrivals, and this was from 
 
JOHN MORLAND 119 
 
 no lack of punctuality on Kitty's part, but because she 
 knew the value of first impressions, and she wanted the 
 company fully assembled that she might make her entrance 
 as effective as possible. Some of the guests had not seen 
 her since her marriage; a few had never seen her; and none 
 were fully prepared for the dazzling creature that burst 
 upon them. She quite took even Mrs. Decatur's breath 
 away who, half-dazed for a moment, unconsciously made 
 almost as deep a curtsey to Kitty as Kitty made to her 
 hostess. 
 
 Kitty's shimmering satin and glittering jewels and 
 nodding plumes on which she was priding herself were 
 not half so dazzling as her sparkling eyes and glowing 
 cheeks and burnished waves of chestnut hair, and the 
 English ambassador, a bachelor and something of a gallant, 
 begged at once to be presented, and for the rest of the 
 evening had eyes or ears for no one else. Kitty cared little 
 about making conquests now, she was too absorbed in her 
 handsome yoimg husband; nevertheless it pleased her to 
 be singled out by this elegant man of fashion, and pleased 
 her more for the sake of her husband than for her own sake. 
 He would be proud of her that she could take away the 
 most eligible man in the room from the several unmarried 
 ladies present. 
 
 But to Kitty's amazement, when they had been seated in 
 the grand dining-room at a more beautifully appointed 
 table than Kitty had ever sat down to, waited upon by 
 servants as perfectly drilled as Tim McCabe's, but who 
 served them with no ostentatious parade, she discovered 
 that it was not pride that flashed from her husband's eyes. 
 It looked to Kitty almost like anger; a look she had never 
 seep in his eyes, and had seldom seen 'm the eyes of any one 
 
120 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 when they were bent on her. Kitty could not understand 
 it, but if it had anything to do with the lively chatter in 
 which she and the English ambassador had been 
 engaged, then Kitty decided it was silly, and she would but 
 make herself still more charming to her agreeable dinner 
 partner. 
 
 It was anger, suspicion, and jealousy, a deadly combina- 
 tion indeed, that Kitty had surprised in her husband's 
 glance, but it was only partly due to the ambassador's 
 attentions. Standing in Mrs. Decatur's drawing-room 
 before dinner, for the moment disengaged and watching 
 with a glow of triumph the impression Kitty was making, 
 he had overheard a conversation that may or may not 
 have been intended for his ears. 
 
 "1 don't imderstand Mrs. Decatur's inviting her here; 
 she certainly never can have heard the story of her 
 elopement." 
 
 It was Miss Dayton speaking, the young lady who had 
 been distinguished by Montclair's attentions at Mrs. 
 Adams's ball, and who was infatuated with Montclair, as 
 Kitty knew, and madly jealous of any one for whom he 
 showed a preference. But Sutherland knew nothing about 
 either Miss Dayton or Montclair, and he had only the 
 passing interest in the speech that any one might feel 
 on hearing of an elopement, and wondering who could 
 be the principals. It was the reply to her words that 
 startled him cruelly : 
 
 "Elopement! Kitty McCabe eloped! With whom, 
 pray? I have never heard a word of it." 
 
 "Oh, I thought everybody knew it, or I would not have 
 mentioned it to you. I only heard it myself the other day, 
 but the person who told me said it was common talk at the 
 
JOHN MORLAND 121 
 
 time, though her friends seemed to have succeeded in 
 hushing it up later." 
 
 " But who did she elope with ? and when was it ? This 
 is too startHng not to know more of it." 
 
 " Oh, three or four years ago, I think. Nobody knows 
 the man; they succeeded in keeping that quiet. Kitty 
 got out of her window by a rope-ladder at midnight, and 
 no one discovered she was gone until the next morning. 
 Then they found them in Georgetown just on their way, 
 they said, to the priest's." 
 
 There was a moment's silence. Sutherland had his 
 back turned to the two women; he could not see the 
 significant glances that he was sure were interchanged, but 
 he could feel them. 
 
 In a state bordering on frenzy he was at this moment 
 presented to the lady he was to take out to dinner, and had 
 to listen to praises of his beautiful wife and try, for 
 decency's sake, to make suitable responses to them. A 
 stronger man than the handsome young lieutenant would 
 have indignantly refused to harbour a suspicion against 
 his young wife, whose love for him had shown itself as 
 artless as it was deep and pure. Morland in his place 
 would probably have turned on the two women and found 
 means to quietly but effectually silence them at once and 
 forever, but Lieutenant Sutherland was cast in a dif- 
 ferent mould. He did not fully believe what he had heard 
 — he could not; but it was agony to him to hear his wife's 
 reputation so besmirched, and he was more angry with her 
 than with her traducers that she should ever have given 
 anyone a chance to speak lightly of her. The attentions 
 of the English ambassador, far from pleasing him, added 
 to his suspicions because of the evident pleasure Kitty 
 
122 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 was taking in them. There flashed into his mind the 
 remembrance that he had found it no diflBcult matter to 
 make a quick conquest of Kitty; perhaps others before 
 him had found it as easy. 
 
 To do him justice, he was ashamed of this last argument, 
 but his shame only made him sullen. At a table where the 
 wines were always of the best and most plentiful, there 
 was never any heavy drinking, at least while the ladies 
 were present. Now, with the idea of forgetting his misery, 
 Sutherland began to empty glass after glass, and to call for 
 more, when the attentive servants were not quick enough 
 to replenish his glass, in a voice that grew louder and 
 more truculent with each succeeding demand. 
 
 Kitty was covered with shame and mortification. She 
 tried to catch her husband's eye, but he was evidently 
 avoiding hers. When she at last succeeded she put all the 
 appeal she could command into her look, hoping to win 
 him to a sense of his condition. But he returned her glance 
 with angry disdain, and turned to call for more wine in a 
 tone more ostentatiously blatant than before. 
 
 Poor Kitty! She had been so proud of her handsome 
 young husband, and so happy and excited in the anticipa- 
 tion of this dinner at Kalorama, and now she was more 
 miserable than she had ever been in her life. And, with 
 no clue to the cause of such a change in her husband, she 
 was almost as bewildered as she was miserable. 
 
 Of course it was impossible that such a flagrant breach 
 of the proprieties on Sutherland's part could go unobserved. 
 No one understood it any more than did Kitty, but the 
 distress of the young wife was so evident, though with 
 heightened colour she was bravely trying to cover it, that 
 the guests began to vie with each other in their attempts 
 
JOHN MORLAND 123 
 
 to distract and amuse her. Only Morland was feeling 
 such blinding anger toward the young husband, and such 
 keen pain for the young wife, that he could take no part in 
 the friendly contest, but sat rigidly silent. The Ambas- 
 sador redoubled his attentions, Mrs. Decatur repeated 
 some pretty compliments to her — for since the Ambassa- 
 dor was on her right and Kitty was next the Ambassador 
 they were near neighbours — and Webster and Clay 
 began a series of amusing and friendly attacks, one on the 
 other, that soon had the table absorbed; for there were no 
 two men in the country quite such brilliant dinner guests 
 as these two. 
 
 Kitty had always known Clay, but she had met Webster 
 for the first time this evening, though his striking figure 
 and magnificent head had long been familiar to her by 
 sight. It had been one of her triumphs this evening that 
 Webster had stopped to talk with her a minute or two in 
 the drawing-room, taking the opportunity to express to her 
 his admiration for her mother; and now, in spite of all her 
 misery, she could not but feel a thrill of gratification when 
 the great statesman pointedly addressed her. 
 
 "Mrs. Sutherland," he said, "you were not old enough 
 to be visiting the galleries of Congress when my friend Clay 
 executed his great coup d'etat, were you?" 
 
 "I 'm not sure," said Kitty modestly, "for I am so 
 ignorant I do not know what the coup d'etat was." 
 
 " My enemies have not always called it by such a pretty 
 name," interposed Clay, laughing. " John Randolph calls 
 it 'a trick'. 
 
 "If it was not a coup d'etat," said Benton, in his stately 
 way, slightly tinged with pomposity, "I know nothing in 
 history that could be called one." 
 
124 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 " But tell me, please, what it was," urged Kitty. " How 
 am I to decide whether it was a coup d'etat or a trick if I do 
 not know what you are talking about ?" 
 
 "Yes, Kitty shall decide!" exclaimed Clay gleefully, 
 "and I adjure you all to abide by her decision. Webster 
 shall tell the tale, which I consider a generous concession 
 on my part. Now, Kitty, remember, I 'm your oldest friend 
 here." The brilliant Clay was rather proud of being on 
 such friendly terms with this beautiful young woman as 
 to be able to call her by her first name. 
 
 Webster was quite willing to tell the story. 
 
 "Whether it was a trick or a coup d'etat," he began, 
 "it was undeniably clever, and, in the opinion of some of 
 us, saved the country from civil war. But you shall decide, 
 Mrs. Sutherland. The Missouri Compromise resolution, 
 you know, passed the House on March second, and 
 John Randolph voted for it. But over night he 
 thought better of his vote, I suppose," with a depreca- 
 tory bow toward Benton — " it seemed to him a blow 
 aimed at State sovereignty, or adverse to the slavery 
 interests. Anyway, he was in his seat early on the 
 morning of March third, and devotional exercises were 
 hardly over before he sprang to his feet and moved 
 to reconsider the vote of the day before on the Missouri 
 question. Now, Clay had worked hard for the passage 
 of the resolution, and had made some great speeches 
 in its behalf. And by the way. Clay," said Webster 
 turning suddenly to him with a keen twinkle in his 
 eye, "what has become of those speeches? I was 
 looking for them in the records the other day and they 
 were not there." 
 
 Clay coloured slightly. He knew from the twinkle in 
 
JOHN MORLAND 125 
 
 Webster's eye that he understood why they were not there, 
 but all he said was: 
 
 "Is that so ?" and Webster went on with his story. 
 
 "Well, of course Mr. Clay was not going to have the 
 whole subject reopened and the resolution perhaps lost. 
 Quick as a flash he ruled Mr. Randolph's motion out of 
 order: the regular business of the House must be first 
 transacted. Randolph was as uneasy as a fish out of 
 water. He knew Clay was equal to any emergency, and he 
 watched him like a hawk, while he listened to the petitions 
 from the States being received and referred. The moment 
 Virginia was called Randolph was on his feet again, and 
 moved that 'the House retain in its possession the 
 Missouri bill until the period should arrive when, accord- 
 ing to the rules of the House, a motion to reconsider should 
 be in order.' But Clay was ready for him. 
 
 " ' The gentleman from Virginia is out of order for the 
 same reason assigned on his first application to-day,' 
 said Clay, and while petitions were going on he either 
 shoved a note to the clerk or dropped him a word, and the 
 bill was hurried off to the Senate. Then when Randolph 
 finally got the floor, Mr. Clay 'regretted to say that he had 
 ascertained the fact that the proceedings of the House on 
 that bill yesterday had been communicated to the Senate, 
 and that the bill not being in the possession of the House 
 a motion to reconsider could not be entertained.' Now 
 either that was the cleverest coup d'etat or the sharpest 
 trick in the history of the House — which was it, Mrs. 
 Sutherland?" 
 
 But Kitty had no chance to reply, for a burst of applause 
 greeted the close of Webster's story. It was a well-known 
 incident to most of those present, but it recalled a time 
 
126 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 when sectional feeling was at fever heat, and when the 
 "Great Pacificator" as men loved to call Clay, had 
 earned his title and won the larger part of his popularity. 
 Therefore, though a little of the applause was for the story- 
 teller, most of it was for Clay, and Webster indicated that 
 he claimed no share in it by heartily joining in it himself. 
 
 As the applause subsided, the Ambassador turned to 
 Kitty. 
 
 " But you were to decide, Mrs. Sutherland," he insisted, 
 "which was it?" 
 
 " Oh," returned Kitty quickly, with her sweetest smile 
 directed toward Clay, "in America, you know, we decide 
 every question by the vote of the majority, and your 
 applause shows that you have already unanimously 
 decided it to be what Mr. Webster called it, ' the cleverest 
 coup d'etat in the history of the House.'" 
 
 There was another burst of applause — for Kitty this 
 time. The table was at ease once more; they had for- 
 gotten Lieutenant Sutherland, who was still drinking 
 heavily. Even Kitty's attention had for the moment been 
 diverted from him. Mrs. Decatur was not going to give 
 any chance for the return of the uneasiness; she seized 
 this opportune moment to rise from the table and lead the 
 ladies with her back to the drawing-room. 
 
 Clay and Morland both sprang to hold back, one on 
 each side, the wide folding-doors as the ladies passed 
 through. As Kitty swept by him Clay bent his tall head 
 smilingly and whispered: 
 
 "I was very proud of my little friend." 
 
 Kitty flashed him a smile of pleased appreciation, 
 but turned almost instantly to Morland on the other side 
 and looked up at him with eyes so sad and so appealing 
 
JOHN MORLAND 127 
 
 there was no trace of the radiant Kitty in them. Morland 
 knew what the appeahng glance meant: it said as clearly 
 as words — "Take care of my husband." 
 
 There was no time for him to reply, but he bent on her 
 such kindly eyes, so reassuring and so full of the truest 
 sympathy, it was better than many words, and Kitty fol- 
 lowed Mrs. Decatur to the drawing-room a little comforted. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 MOKLAl^D MAKES TWO RESOLUTIONS 
 
 TS IT true that Clay 's speeches on the Missouri Com- 
 ■*■ promise are not down in the records ? " Morland asked 
 Webster, when for a moment they happened to be together 
 in a comer of Mrs. Decatur's drawing-room. Clay had 
 gone into the card-room almost immediately from the 
 dining-room : a game of whist drew him as irresistibly as 
 the pole draws the needle. 
 
 "Yes, it 's true," replied Webster, "and I suppose you 
 know why?" 
 
 "I am not sure, but I saw from Clay's manner that he 
 believed you knew why, and was embarrassed by your 
 knowledge." 
 
 "It would take more than that to embarrass Clay, I 
 fancy," returned Webster, "but you remember he began 
 his fKjlitical career by making the most imequivocal anti- 
 slavery speeches. It required some courage, too, in a 
 Kentuckian, to show himself so independent of his con- 
 stituents, and the country. North and South, admired him 
 for it. Well, those speeches went on the records and 
 you can easily see it would be a difficult matter to 
 explain to posterity the entire change of tone in his Mis- 
 souri Compromise speeches, and Clay has had them 
 suppressed." 
 
 "Yes, I see," said Morland thoughtfully. "Well, 
 Clay is a great man, but he is also a clever one, 
 
 128 
 
THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 129 
 
 which in my opinion is something entirely distinct from 
 greatness." 
 
 "He is indeed a great man," assented Webster warmly. 
 "I regard him as the most brilliant intellect this country 
 has yet produced. A man has a right to a change of 
 opinion. I have no doubt Clay came honestly by his, and, 
 however vacillating his stand upon the slavery question 
 may have been, the country owes him a debt of gratitude 
 it can never repay for his management of the Missouri 
 Compromise!" 
 
 Morland started to agree with him, but his attention 
 was diverted by a signal from Kitty. 
 
 "I beg pardon," he said, "but I see Mrs. Sutherland is 
 ready to go, and I have promised to see her home." 
 
 "Poor little woman!" exclaimed Webster sympathetic- 
 ally, but Morland seemed almost to resent his sympathy. 
 He bowed stiffly and without a word hastened to 
 Kitty's side. 
 
 When, a few moments before, the men had come in from 
 the dining-room. Lieutenant Sutherland had not been with 
 them. Kitty's glance of terrified inquiry sought Morland 
 at once, and he hurried to explain to her in a low tone : 
 
 "Your husband," he said, "was not feeling well, and I 
 have sent him home with my man. I have promised to 
 make his excuses to Mrs. Decatur and to see you safely 
 home. I will go and speak to Mrs. Decatur now, and when 
 you are ready to go you can signal me. But you need not 
 hurry." 
 
 Poor Kitty! She was overwhelmed with mortification 
 and anxiety, but for the moment the mortification was 
 uppermost. With such bright anticipations she had come 
 to this party, and almost from the very start it had been 
 
130 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 but a long-drawn misery to her. She was hot with anger 
 against her young husband. He had destroyed all her 
 social ambitions. No one in society would ever invite 
 them again — certainly Mrs. Decatur would not. There 
 was no use in being beautiful and charming if she was to 
 be dragged down by a drunken husband, for Kitty had only 
 too surely guessed the scene in the dining-room and the 
 necessity of carrying home a man in no condition to help 
 himself. Well, she would brave it out. No one should 
 see her display the white feather. She would save what she 
 could from the wreck. And the English Ambassador 
 coming up at that moment, she received his air of devotion 
 with greater complacency than she had yet shown, and met 
 him quite half-way in his tentative efforts at a flirtation. 
 
 But at the very moment when to the observers (and there 
 were some present who were not altogether friendly) 
 Kitty seemed to be enjoying most the Ambassador's 
 compliments and tender trifles, colouring prettily in 
 response to them and even audaciously drawing him on to 
 repeat them — at that very moment anxiety rushed back 
 upon her in an overwhelming flood. She had no thought 
 now for anyone but her husband. Her anger against him 
 was gone. Ill and suffering, as she pictured him, she must 
 see him at once. In the midst of one of the Ambassador's 
 prettiest speeches she signalled Morland, and, careless of 
 the chagrin depicted on the Ambassador's face, excused 
 herself to him and sought Mrs. Decatur to say good-night. 
 
 In the carriage descending the winding drive that Kitty 
 and her husband had found so beautiful in the ascent, and 
 which was, if possible, lovelier in the soft moonlight than 
 under the sunset glow, but for whose beauties Kitty had 
 now no eyes, Morland said to her: 
 
JOHN MORLAND 131 
 
 "I had your husband taken to my rooms, Kitty. I 
 thought " 
 
 But Kitty interrupted him in a blind flash of anger: 
 
 "You had no right to do that! I shall go and bring him 
 home!" 
 
 " But he was not in a condition, Kitty," Morland remon- 
 strated gently, "for any woman to see him, and I hardly 
 think it safe for him to see you!" 
 
 "Not safe to see me! My husband!" Kitty was too 
 choked with many emotions, the chief of which was anger, 
 to utter another word. 
 
 "For some reason, Kitty " (he hesitated miserably; 
 
 it was not a pleasant task he had set himself, but be must 
 go through with it) " for some reason your husband is very 
 bitter against you, and in his present irresponsible condi- 
 tion I was not sure what he might do or say. You do not 
 know any cause for his bitterness, do you ? " 
 
 "Cause?" repeated Kitty, bewildered. She was think- 
 ing how overflowing with love toward her he had been in 
 that very carriage and on that very spot a few short hours 
 before. "No, there can be no cause. He was never hap- 
 pier or more devoted to me than when we arrived at Mrs. 
 Decatur's," and at the thought all her pride melted. 
 "Oh, Major Morland, what can have happened! Did 
 you see me do anything at Mrs. Decatur's that I ought not 
 to have done?" 
 
 " Hush, Kitty," said Morland sternly, for Kitty was now 
 sobbing piteously, and between his desire to take her in his 
 arms and comfort her as he had sometimes comforted the 
 little Kitty of a few years ago, and his almost overmastering 
 rage against the Lieutenant, he must needs be stern if he 
 would speak at all. 
 
132 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 Kitty did not resent the sternness. She had not quite 
 grown out of considering herself a child with Morland, nor 
 was she quite used to her dignity of married woman. She 
 choked back the sobs as best she could, and in a minute 
 Morland had recovered control of himself so that he 
 could go on more gently. 
 
 " Now, Kitty, since Lieutenant Sutherland is to stay with 
 me to-night, I think I had better take you right to your 
 mother instead of taking you to your rooms." 
 
 But at that Kitty was terror stricken. 
 
 " Oh, no, no, Major Morland! Mother must never know 
 — it would kill herl" she cried, in a panic. 
 
 The Major thought so too. He had an idea she would 
 suffer from this unhappy state of affairs even more poig- 
 nantly than Kitty herself; but neither could he bear to 
 think of Kitty alone at her boarding-place with this first 
 great sorrow of her life. 
 
 Kitty misunderstood his silence. She turned to him 
 and laid her hand on his arm, and with more of quiet 
 earnestness and womanliness than Morland had ever seen 
 in her she said : 
 
 "Promise me, Major Morland, that you will never say a 
 word of this to my mother. This is my secret, though" — 
 bitterly — " it cannot be called much of a secret, since all 
 who were at Mrs. Decatur's house share it with me and by 
 to-morrow it will be the common property of all Washing- 
 ton, I suppose. But it must be kept from my mother at 
 every hazard. Poor mother! She was so happy in 
 getting me ready for the party, and she thinks I have been 
 so happy this evening!" And at that Kitty burst into 
 fresh tears. But this time she was weeping quietly, add 
 Morland did not stop her. 
 
JOHN MORLAND 133 
 
 He did not speak to her again until they were nearing 
 her boarding-place. He had been thinking, and he con- 
 cluded he had been too sympathetic for Kitty's good — he 
 would try now what a little plain common-sense would do, 
 for Kitty was still weeping silently. 
 
 "Kitty," he said, in the most matter-of-fact tone he could 
 assume, "you have Emmeline with you, have n't you ?" 
 
 Kitty merely nodded in reply. 
 
 "Well, have her bring a cot into your bedroom and 
 stay with you to-night so that she will be at hand if you need 
 anything." And then he went on, still very matter-of- 
 fact, he thought, and displaying much hard, worldly sense. 
 
 "We must n't make mountains out of molehills, Kitty. 
 Most men drink more than is good for them occasionally, 
 and when they get over it can be good men and good hus- 
 bands. Sutherland will probably turn up to-morrow all 
 right and very repentant, and it 's more than likely this 
 will never happen again. It 's hard on you, Kitty, but 
 you must n't think you will never be happy again, and I 
 would n't be too bitter against him when you see him, 
 if I were you." 
 
 Kitty had stopped crying at Morland's very first words. 
 She turned her face away from him as he finished speaking, 
 and looked out at the moon-lighted street through which 
 they were passing, but all she said was : 
 
 "Molehills!" 
 
 Morland was very uncomfortable. He seemed to have 
 made no better success at being matter-of-fact arid talking 
 good common-sense than he had in being sympathetic. 
 And that was rather hard on him, for he detested the role, 
 and every word that he had uttered had been in direct 
 violation of his own feelings and principles. He was so 
 
134 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 strong himself he had little toleration for a man who 
 allowed himself to be dominated by appetite, and he was so 
 fastidiously a gentleman he could not understand how any 
 man could so vilely degrade himself. Neither did he believe 
 that such a weakling could be either as good a man or as 
 good a husband as another, and while he was recommend- 
 ing to Kitty not to be too bitter, his own soul was seething 
 with bitterness toward the man who could so treat her. 
 
 He was also greatly abashed by Kitty's ejaculation 
 "Molehills I" It struck him much as if she had said 
 " Fiddlesticks ! " and kept him quiet for the remaining short 
 distance they had yet to go. 
 
 What was more amazing to one who knew Kitty as well 
 as Morland supposed he knew her, Kitty was quiet too. 
 Only when he had helped her from the carriage and up the 
 steps of her boarding-house and opened the door, which 
 always stood imlocked, she turned to him: 
 
 " I shall not forget what you have said. Major Morland, 
 and I thank you for it. And do not worry about me — 
 good-night." 
 
 He did not quite like the way she said it — it sounded 
 almost hard, and anything was better than hardness in 
 Kitty — anything! 
 
 He had sent his own carriage home with Sutherland — 
 this was Kitty's. He dismissed it, for he was not ready to 
 go to his rooms yet; his soul revolted at the thought of 
 what he should find there. For, added to his spiritual 
 indignation and scorn of Sutherland's moral turpitude, 
 was the fastidious shrinking of the flesh from the spectacle 
 that awaited him. The moonlight was flooding the streets, 
 glorifying all that was mean and common ; he looked up at 
 the white dome shining calm and serene in its pure rays, and 
 
JOHN MORLAND 135 
 
 as on another night in April, three years before, he walked 
 up to Capitol Hill to find peace for his perturbed spirit. 
 
 The Capitol was still unfinished, there were still frag- 
 ments of broken pillars and great stones scattered about 
 on which to find a seat. He sat down, and as on that other 
 night he turned over and over in his mind Kitty's future 
 and the prospects for her happiness. The prospects 
 seemed to him but gloomy ones, and he began to wonder 
 whether it would not have been better for Kitty if that 
 elopement of three years before had been allowed to go 
 on to its conclusion. Montclair was a coxcomb and 
 devoid, Morland honestly believed, of the foundation 
 instincts and principles of a gentleman, but was not any- 
 thing better than being the wife of a drunkard ? Was it 
 possible he himself had played the despicable part of a 
 " meddler," and bungled in the meddling ? Well, he would 
 not make that mistake a second time. He would keep his 
 hands off, and leave Kitty to her fate and let her work out 
 her own salvation. 
 
 Only, two things he was resolved upon. One was that 
 he would see as little of Kitty as possible, partly because he 
 thought he had detected signs of jealousy in Sutherland, 
 and partly because he had discovered, on his side, that he 
 was not quite as sure of himself as he would like to be — not 
 quite so emotionless as he had always considered himself. 
 
 His second resolve was that he should cultivate Suther- 
 land's acquaintance and see what the friendship of an 
 older man might be able to do in helping him to steady 
 himself; for after all, the young fellow had some good 
 traits, and he was Kitty's husband, and Kitty loved him. 
 
 Which last resolution on Morland's part did not seem 
 to exactly constitute leaving Kitty to her fate. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 KITTY CONFESSES 
 
 MORLAND concluded he had been right about the 
 signs of jealousy when, the next morning, Suther- 
 land, having waked up in the headachy and irritable state 
 to be expected, resented finding himself in Morland's 
 rooms. Adopting the same matter-of-fact tone that he 
 had fancied would be so effective with Kitty, but had rather 
 disappointed him in her case, he reminded Sutherland that 
 he was a very old friend of Kitty's mother, and as Suther- 
 land had not seemed quite in a condition to be presentable 
 in his wife's apartments he had naturally taken it upon 
 himself to offer his own to Kitty's husband. 
 
 But the matter-of-fact tone was no more successful than 
 it had been in Kitty's case. Morland had not finished 
 speaking when the young fellow burst out irritably and 
 with inexcusable rudeness: 
 
 "I consider you, sir, a meddling old fool! 1 will thank 
 you not to show such an excess of interest in my wife 
 hereafter, and not to take upon yourself to decide whether 
 I am or am not in a condition to present myself at my 
 wife's apartments." 
 
 Morland had all a Southerner's fiery temper, and it was 
 a difficult matter to keep his hands off the insolent and 
 ungrateful young puppy, as he regarded him. But he 
 succeeded in controlling himself out of a true consideration 
 for Kitty, and' although he could not prevent the violent 
 
 136 
 
THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 137 
 
 colour from flaming in his face, he only replied by a 
 formal bow and turning on his heel, left his bedroom to 
 Sutherland and his gloomy thoughts, while he sought for- 
 getfulness of Kitty and her affairs by burying himself in 
 the morning Intelligencer in his adjoining sitting-room. 
 
 But Morland had also been right in attributing to the 
 lieutenant some good qualities. He was a gentleman at 
 heart, and nothing but the state of his nerves could have 
 betrayed him into such rudeness. Left alone, he soon came 
 to himself, and when he presented himself in Morland 's 
 sitting-room " clothed and in his right mind" he was ready 
 with as complete and as humble apologies as Morland 
 could desire, and which he hastened to accept. Neither 
 of the men, however, felt fully at ease with the other, and 
 the Lieutenant being both eager to see his wife and dreading 
 the meeting, refused Morland 's offer of breakfast, for which 
 he said he had no appetite, and hurried away. 
 
 For Kitty it had been an epoch-making night. She 
 had not intended to follow Morland's advice and have 
 Emmeline sleep in her room — there was nothing she was so 
 greatly desiring as to be alone — but Emmeline was wait- 
 ing up to undress her and Kitty found it necessary to 
 explain her husband's absence. She made some lame 
 excuse of his having been summoned to the Navy Yard 
 on duty, but the faithful slave easily read the signs of 
 distress in her young mistress's face and was not deceived. 
 She would listen to no remonstrances from Kitty — and 
 Kitty was too indulgent a mistress to do more than 
 remonstrate. A cot was not to be had without disturbing 
 the household and necessitating awkward explanations, 
 but Emmeline thought it no hardship to bring a pillow and 
 
138 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 quilt and, fully dressed, wrap herself in the quilt and lie 
 down on the floor at the foot of Kitty's bed. 
 
 There were moments through the long night when Kitty, 
 tossing on a sleepless bed and trying to suppress the sighs 
 and moans that would have relieved her full heart if she 
 could have given vent to them, could have wished her girl 
 Emmeline had shown less devotion. But there were also 
 moments when the sound of her quiet breathing was a 
 comfort to her, assuring her that whatever might befall her 
 she had one faithful friend on whom, though humble and 
 comparatively helpless, she could always rely. The 
 future looked very black to Kitty, but she did not for a 
 moment consider turning to her mother for help. The 
 pride that every woman feels who will not admit, until she 
 is compelled, that her marriage has been a failure, and who 
 will conceal her husband's faults till the last moment 
 from those who are the most anxious for her welfare, was 
 partly responsible for this. But, to do Kitty justice, it was 
 more love than pride with her; she would spare her mother 
 the pain which she rightly guessed would be as keen or 
 keener than her own. 
 
 In her restless tossings upon her pillow she was going 
 over and over in her mind every incident of the evening and 
 trying to find a cause for her husband's actions. It was not 
 so much his intoxication that troubled her — that was a 
 deep mortification to her, and especially that he should have 
 been betrayed into it at Kalorama, the place of all places 
 where she had most desired to make a good impression 
 for herself and her husband — but drunkenness was more 
 lightly considered and more easily condoned in the Wash- 
 ington of that day than in the Washington of this, and 
 Kitty might have hoped for a social reinstatement for her 
 
JOHN MORLAND 139 
 
 husband and herself even at Kalorama. The iron that 
 had entered her soul had been the angry and suspicious 
 and even sneering glances that had been directed full upon 
 her by her husband in response to her pleading and 
 reproachful ones when she feared he was beginning to 
 drink too heavily. He was not then sufficiently under the 
 influence of the wine to make his condition responsible for 
 them, and Kitty racked her brain in vain for an adequate 
 cause. If the Ambassador's attentions had provoked them, 
 then she was indeed angry, and it seemed a hopeless future 
 to look forward to if every social triumph for her was to 
 result only in being subjected by her husband to the 
 indignity of suspicion. But she could not believe it had to 
 do entirely with the Ambassador — the cause was too 
 inadequate to the effect — and toward morning Kitty, 
 tired in brain and heart, gave up her fruitless search for a 
 solution and dropped into a short but heavy slumber. 
 
 Emmeline, waking at her usual hour and finding Kitty 
 sleeping, hoped she had slept all night and stole quietly 
 away with her pillow and her quilt to make herself tidy and 
 return by the time she should be needed. She stole as 
 quietly back, but Kitty was wide awake and staring with 
 unseeing eyes at a point in the wall opposite; for the first 
 moment of a return to consciousness had brought back her 
 trouble, and she was again in the treadmill of vain ques- 
 tionings. Emmeline addressed her with exaggerated 
 cheerfulness: 
 
 "Ain' you gwine to git up, missie? Dis am a gran' 
 mohnen fo' white folks." 
 
 Sure enough the sun was shining gloriously and Kitty 
 had not noticed it. She glanced toward the window and 
 saw that the tender green of April was almost pushing 
 
140 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 into her room, so vigorously had the spring growth of 
 maples and lindens asserted itself. The birds were sing- 
 ing madly, and delicious odours from a crab-apple tree, in 
 full blossom just below her window, were filling this room. 
 No young thing could quite resist the influences of such a 
 morning in April; life in such a beautiful world as this 
 could not be quite as black and hopeless as it had seemed 
 to ICitty in the dark watches of the night. 
 
 She was horrified when she looked in her mirror to see 
 how pale and sunken her cheeks were; how lustreless her 
 eyes, dragged back into deep hollows; and that even her 
 hair, Kitty's chief glory, seemed to have lost half its curl 
 and burnished gloss. It was not by looking worn and 
 haggard and ugly that Kitty hoped to produce the effect 
 upon her husband that she intended. She knew too well 
 that it was her beauty that had attracted him, and by her 
 beauty she must hope to keep her hold on him. Not that 
 she incended to sue for his favour. No, indeed! The role 
 she had assigned to herself was one of stem displeasure. He 
 was to be taken roundly to task, and if he had any fault to 
 find with her he was to be given no chance to find it. His 
 role, as laid out by Kitty, was to be entirely a defensive one, 
 but to make her attack effective she knew she needed the 
 adjunct of her beauty. She set vigourously to work, 
 therefore, to make herself as fresh looking and as beautiful 
 as possible after a night of sleeplessness, and then sat down 
 with a bit of dainty sewing to await her husband's coming. 
 
 Kitty had courage, but she could not keep her heart from 
 beating faster at every step on the stair that she thought 
 might prove to be his. In order to have Emmeline out of 
 the way on her husband's arrival she had found three 
 separate pretexts to send her on errands that she thought 
 
JOHN MORLAND 141 
 
 would take some time to execute; but Emmeline, as 
 anxious to be present at the meeting as her mistress was 
 anxious to have her absent, hurried through each errand 
 with incredible despatch for a slow-moving negress, and so 
 it happened that, following close on the footsteps of the 
 Lieutenant as he slowly mounted the stairs, she heard his 
 first embarrassed and consequently rather surly: 
 
 "Well! How do you do?" 
 
 Now, Kitty's husband had never before left her for so 
 much as an hour without the tenderest greeting on his 
 return, and the fact that he made no attempt to kiss her 
 but convinced Kitty that there was really something very 
 dreadful the matter, and hardened her heart still more 
 against him. 
 
 "Very well, I thank you," she answered coldly, without 
 lifting her eyes from her work, where, after one shocked 
 glance at his pale face and lustreless eyes, they had fastened 
 themselves. 
 
 The Lieutenant fidgeted a moment, and then inquired 
 with a little less surliness: 
 
 "Been to breakfast?" 
 
 " No, I have been waiting for you," said Kitty, speaking 
 truthfully, since she had decided that appearances must be 
 maintained at all hazards, and that when her husband 
 came in they would present themselves together at the 
 breakfast-table, and no one but Emmeline and Morland 
 would ever know that he had spent the night away from 
 her. But her husband did not feel equal to the ordeal. 
 
 "I am not going down. I 'm not hungry," he said. 
 
 "Very well," returned Kitty, who was too proud to argue 
 the matter with him, but was revolving swiftly in her mind 
 various expedients for still saving appearances. 
 
142 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 Her husband glanced angrily at Emmeline. He had 
 fully determined to have it out with Kitty, and for her sake 
 as well as his own he wanted no third person present, even 
 one who counted for so little as his wife's faithful slave-girl. 
 
 "Why do you have that girl forever hanging around?" 
 he demanded irritably. 
 
 Kitty glanced at Emmeline, but the girl read her purpose 
 in her mistress's eyes. She was terrified, for her vivid 
 imagination pictured Kitty as suffering personal violence 
 at the hands of her husband if she were not there to protect 
 her. 
 
 "Marse Will," she exclaimed quickly, "I done promise 
 ole miss I tek good care of missie, an' ef yoh gwine argify 
 with her, don' mind me, case I 'se bleeged to stay close 
 by her." 
 
 Kitty's smiles lay very close to her tears, and she could 
 not prevent a little one from dimpling the comers of her 
 mouth at the ludicrous picture of terror Emmeline 
 presented. It touched her a little, too, as another 
 evidence of the girl's devotion to her, for, however 
 unfounded Emmeline's fears might be, Kitty knew they 
 were very genuine and very acute. But it only infuriated 
 her husband. It touched neither his sense of humour or 
 of pathos that he should be suspected of wife-beating, and 
 he was about to order the girl angrily from the room, 
 when Kitty, seeing his intention and knowing how useless 
 it would be, interposed. 
 
 "Emmeline," she said, "go downstairs and tell Mrs. 
 Black that Mr. Sutherland is not well and I will take my 
 breakfast upstairs with him this morning. You will wait 
 and bring up the breakfast yourself." 
 
 There was a new note of command in Kitty's voice that 
 
JOHN MORLAND 143 
 
 Emmeline did not dare disobey. She retreated slowly 
 and sullenly, shaking her head and muttering unintelli- 
 gibly. As soon as the door had closed behind her, Kitty 
 turned to her husband : 
 
 "Well? What did you wish to say to me?" 
 
 The Lieutenant was almost as effectually cowed as 
 Emmeline by this new note in Kitty's voice. He could 
 only save his dignity by bluster, and he resorted to it at 
 once. 
 
 "It is rather late in the day, madam, for me to be hearing 
 that my wife has been married before, and without benefit 
 of clergy! " he blurted out brutally. 
 
 Kitty was so young she hardly knew the meaning of 
 "without benefit of clergy," but "married before" had an 
 awful sound, and she turned deadly pale. Then the 
 colour rushed back in an angry flood, as she perceived that 
 her husband had been hearing some dreadful tale of her, 
 and forgetting for the moment that there could ever have 
 been even the slightest foundation for such a story, she was 
 in a blinding rage that he should have listened to such 
 lying scandal, and of her. She was speechless for a 
 moment, and indeed her first impulse was never to speak 
 to him again as long as she lived. But the returning wave 
 of passion brought her voice with it. 
 
 "Explain yourself, sir!" she demanded with cold fury. 
 
 Now, the Lieutenant had not half believed what he had 
 heard. How could he, when he remembered his artless 
 young bride 1 And at this moment she looked to him the 
 picture of innocence, with her fearless gray eyes, the curling 
 lashes well lifted, looking straight into his shifting black 
 ones, for, try as he might, he could not meet Kitty's direct 
 glance of steel. Nevertheless, though he now believed that 
 
144 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 what he had heard was all a lie, he was obstinately deter- 
 mined to make his wife suffer a little for the suffering he 
 had endured; hoping also to shift the blame of his dis- 
 graceful conduct of the evening before from his own 
 shoulders to hers, and thus escape the lecture he dreaded, 
 but knew he deserved. So he persisted, and by way 
 of bolstering up his rapidly sinking courage, he envenomed 
 his next words with a light sneer: 
 
 "Perhaps it seemed so slight a matter to you that you 
 have entirely forgotten that you ever spent the night away 
 from home with a young man, and were discovered the next 
 morning — rather an afterthought, it seems — on your 
 way to a priest's." 
 
 There must have been something of the brute innate in 
 the handsome young lieutenant to have made it possible 
 for him ever to have uttered such words to his young wife, 
 no matter what the provocation. Kitty never forgave 
 them. She did not, for a moment, recognize herself in his 
 description, and so far beyond the truth was it that it did 
 not even suggest to her the very slight foundation the 
 story might have claimed. In a white blaze of wrath 
 she turned upon her husband. She was of splendid pro- 
 portions, and now, although he was her equal in height, 
 it seemed to him that she towered above him, her figure 
 dilating with passion, her eyes flashing flames, while the 
 words that came through the scarlet curves of her scornful 
 lips were concentrated fury : cool, clear, incisive, every one 
 a dagger. She was superb; and while her husband 
 visibly shrivelled in the blaze of her scorn, he admired her 
 greatly, with the admiration the moral coward will always 
 feel for the morally fearless. Thoroughly subdued, he 
 began a muttered apology. 
 
JOHN MORLAND 145 
 
 "You need never attempt an apology for those words," 
 she interrupted him superbly. "Nothing can ever atone 
 for them." 
 
 "Oh, Kitty, forgive me," he begged abjectly. "How 
 could I know that Miss Dayton was lying?" 
 
 He had not expected his words to have any effect, but to 
 his amazement Kitty suddenly quailed. All her superb 
 scorn fell from her like a mantle. She turned white, and 
 whereas she had begun to pace the room with the free and 
 scornful stride of an enraged panther, she now sank 
 breathless into a chair. 
 
 "Miss Dayton!" she faltered. 
 
 That name had at once suggested Montclair, and in a 
 flash she knew the whole foundation of the story, and 
 knew that she must confess it to her husband. The 
 memory of that experience had become so hateful to her 
 that, sybarite as she was by nature, she never allowed her- 
 self to think about it and had indeed almost forgotten it. 
 She believed that there were but five persons in the world 
 that knew of it — herself and Montclair, her father and 
 mother, and Major Morland. She had believed it buried 
 too deep for any resurrection, for she could not think that 
 any one of those five would ever bring it to light; certainly 
 not Montclair, the chief culprit. And even more certainly 
 not one of the others; and it proves how the simple nobility 
 of John Morland's nature had impressed itself upon Kitty, 
 that she no more doubted him than she doubted herself, 
 although he was the only one of the five that did not have 
 a vital personal interest in keeping it quiet — or so Kitty 
 thought. 
 
 Now, if there was something of the brute in the Lieuten- 
 ant, there must also have been a large admixture of the 
 
146 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 gentleman, for no sooner did he see Kitty turn white, and, 
 sinking into her chair, look up at him with the helpless 
 appeal of terror in her lovely gray eyes, than he forgot his 
 wrath, did not seem to realize that her aspect betokened 
 guilt, and felt only a rush of tenderness toward her. 
 
 "Kitty, Kitty!" he cried, throwing himself down 
 beside her and attempting to take her hand. But she drew 
 her hand away gently, but determinedly. 
 
 "No, Will," she said, "go and sit down, please, just as 
 far away from me as you can get. I have something to 
 tell you that I see now I should have told you long ago." 
 
 Her husband did not like to be repulsed. Was he not 
 the injured party, and was he not making all the over- 
 tures ? It was as little as his wife could do to accept them. 
 He sullenly rose from his knees, and took the seat Kitty 
 had indicated. White, and trembling with shame, Kitty 
 told the story of her interrupted elopement, only, with her 
 husband as with her parents, suppressing Montclair's 
 name and suppressing, also, the name of the man who had 
 interfered to save her. The whole story was hateful to 
 her, and it was especially hateful to the proud Kitty to 
 be telling it to the husband whom she had once adored, 
 and who she could readily see still adored her. 
 
 Not once did he interrupt her, though a dull red slowly 
 swept over his face as Kitty's low tones went steadily on. 
 When she had finished, Sutherland loeked suddenly up. 
 
 "Was it Major Morland?" he asked with such vindic- 
 tiveness in voice and eye that Kitty hastened to answer: 
 
 "Major Morland I Oh, no! no/ How could you think 
 that?" 
 
 " Does Major Morland know about it ? " 
 
 "Yes," answered Kitty reluctantly. 
 
JOHN MORLAND 147 
 
 "Then," said the Lieutenant, conviction in his voice, 
 " if Major Morland was not the villain, he is the one who 
 has betrayed the story." 
 
 But Kitty cried "no, no!" again with redoubled eager- 
 ness. It was impossible that Morland could have been 
 guilty of such a breach of confidence, and still more imposs- 
 ible that he who knew the whole truth could wilfully have 
 falsified and exaggerated it to Kitty's hurt. But her hus- 
 band was not to be convinced. He had developed an un- 
 reasoning jealousy of Morland, and with the strange 
 contrariety of a small nature, the fact that Morland had 
 shoAvn himself a helpful friend in his disgrace of the 
 evening before, instead of winning his gratitude, won only 
 bitter suspicion of his motives. 
 
 It had seemed, at the moment that Kitty quailed in terror 
 before her husband, that the two might easily get back to 
 their old terms before the evening at Kalorama. But 
 now, in this contest over Morland, Sutherland violently 
 accusing him and Kitty even more stubbornly defending 
 him, they were as far apart as ever. The Lieutenant's 
 nerves were in the state to be expected after such a night, 
 and it did not take many minutes of this altercation over 
 Morland to make them give way altogether. With a 
 weak cry, "Oh, Kitty, you do not love me!" he suddenly 
 turned, and throwing his arms on the table beside him, 
 buried his face in them and sobbed aloud. 
 
 Now, weakness in a man made little or no appeal to Kitty. 
 It was strength she loved, and such a childish display as 
 this roused rather her scorn than her pity. Moreover, she 
 recognized that his sobs were not so much due to over- 
 powering emotion as to the after effects of over-stimulation, 
 which added the element of disgust to her scorn. There- 
 
148 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 fore at first her lips curled and her eyes hardened. Yet, as 
 she watched the blacls; and curly head that she had loved, 
 bowed in grief, even though it were the grief of a weakling, 
 and the slender boyish figure, that had been her admira- 
 tion, shaken with sobs, the hardness melted from her eyes 
 and her lips softened into gentler curves. 
 
 At that moment Emmeline entered, bearing a huge 
 breakfast-tray, containing everything to be found on Mrs. 
 Black's elaborate menu. The presence of the black girl 
 was but small restraint to either of them; nevertheless 
 Sutherland hardly liked to appear in the r6le of a weeping 
 man, even before his wife's slave girl, and he attempted to 
 control his sobs. Kitty motioned to Emmeline to set down 
 the tray and leave the room, and the girl, seeing that her 
 mistress " had the upper hand," as she phrased it to herself, 
 no longer feared for her and was nothing loath to obey. 
 
 Kitty poured out a cup of coffee and took it over to her 
 husband. She laid her hand on his curls caressingly, as 
 she might have done with a naughty child. 
 
 "Will," she said, with gentle firmness, "you must drink 
 this coffee and you will feel better. You are not well." 
 
 His wife's cool, firm voice seemed to act like a tonic on 
 Sutherland. His sobs ceased entirely, he lifted his head, 
 took the cup from her hand and drank it obediently. 
 
 "And now," continued Kitty, when she had watched him 
 drain his cup, "I am going to mother's. She is expecting 
 me, and if I am not there by ten o'clock she will come here, 
 and I do not think you would like that any more than I 
 would." 
 
 Sutherland looked up at her with startled eyes as she 
 said she was going to her mother's, and Kitty answered the 
 look with good-natured contempt. 
 
JOHN MORLAND 149 
 
 "No, I 'm not going to 'tell'; but mother is anxious to 
 hear about the dinner, and I shall give her a full account of 
 the grand time we had last night. I shall tell her what 
 everybody wore and everything that Clay and Webster and 
 the British Ambassador said to me." 
 
 And then for the first time Kitty weakened. As a wave 
 of recollection of her mother's bright anticipations for the 
 evening swept over her, her lip quivered. 
 
 "Poor mother 1" she murmured, and turned quickly 
 away to hide from her husband the tears that had sprung 
 to her eyes. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 A BOLT FBOM THE BLUE 
 
 MORLAND kept his resolve of seeing but little of 
 Kitty better than such resolves are often kept. 
 But then Morland was a man who always kept his promises, 
 even if they were made only to himself. He did not make 
 them readily, nor did he break them lightly. 
 
 It might have been supposed to be a little difBcult, also — 
 this keeping to his resolve — since very shortly after the 
 dinner at Kalorama he had gone back to his did rooms 
 at McCabe's. General Jackson was already established 
 there — he had only stayed at Gadsby's until there should 
 be a room vacant for him at McCabe 's — and Morland 
 only waited for another vacancy to follow him. He wanted 
 to be near his chief, in easy communication with him at 
 any hour of the day or night, for that was an exciting spring 
 to the old General and his friends — the spring of his first 
 presidential campaign — and of all his friends in Wash- 
 ington, Morland was by far the closest. 
 
 And it might have been supposed to add still further to 
 Morland's difficulties in keeping that resolution, that very 
 shortly after he took up his abode at McCabe's, Kitty 
 herself, with her husband, went home to live. There were 
 several reasons for this step: one was that Kitty could be 
 far more comfortable at home than in the ordinary Wash- 
 ington boarding-house; and another was that both Kitty's 
 mother and father were desirous to help the Lieutenant eke 
 
 150 
 
THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 151 
 
 out his rather slender salary by offering a home for himself 
 and Kitty — and the Lieutenant was nothing loath. 
 
 It was Kitty who made the difficulties. It hurt her pride 
 that having married she should come to live on her parents. 
 Nor did she beheve that relief from responsibility would be 
 good for her husband, as she felt morally certain the money 
 thus saved would be instantly dissipated. Most of all 
 she dreaded her mother's knowledge of his weaknesses, and 
 she foresaw that it would be impossible to hide them from 
 her. But she was only one against three, and though 
 usually Kitty could easily stand out successfully against 
 three or more when it was a matter of having her own way, 
 she was not at this time in her usual spirits; she was listless, 
 and her courage, or combative spirit, which ever it might 
 be called, was at its lowest point. 
 
 But, in spite of the fact that they were living in the same 
 house, Morland saw little of Kitty. She did not come into 
 the dining-room, and he went but seldom to Mrs. 
 McCabe's parlor. He had every excuse for this in the 
 almost overwhelming demands Jackson's campaign, which 
 had set in in earnest with the coming of spring, made upon 
 him. Yet he found time, in the multiplicity of political 
 engagements, to carry out his other resolution of cultivating 
 a friendship with the Lieutenant. He had him frequently 
 in his room to smoke an after-dinner cigar, and often in the 
 morning, before he was due at the Capitol, he called Suther- 
 land upstairs, on the pretext of asking his assistance in 
 sorting papers or copying letters. He had concluded the 
 Lieutenant had too much idle time on his hands; he would 
 give him an interest in life that might work out his salvation 
 and make a man of him. Whether it would finally prove 
 efficacious or not, for the present it seemed to work well. 
 
152 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 The Lieutenant entered with enthusiasm into the business 
 of the campaign, and became as devoted to Morland as 
 for a while he had seemed to be suspicious and distrustful 
 of him. 
 
 He and Kitty had patched up their trouble. Perhaps 
 Sutherland did not know it was only a patch; no doubt he 
 believed the fabric of their love had been woven together 
 again as firmly as if there had never been a break in it; 
 but to Kitty there was ever present in her thoughts the 
 hideous rent, only covered from sight by the patch, whose 
 weak stitches might at any moment give way. All the 
 glow of the honeymoon had faded, for to a nature like 
 Kitty's the discovery that she had married a weakling was 
 the severest disappointment that could befall her. More- 
 over, her pride was incurably hurt. She could not but 
 perceive that her husband did not wholly believe her 
 version of that early elopement; sometimes, in spite of his 
 passionate adoration of her, which had in no whit 
 diminished, she discovered signs of a weak distrust and 
 suspicion. 
 
 Occasionally at such times he had even hinted that it was 
 possible Miss Dayton's version of the story might not be 
 wholly false ; hints which Kitty proudly ignored, but which 
 she could not forgive. If there was one pride a little more 
 towering in Kitty than any other, it was pride of her word. 
 The slightest impeachment of her veracity was to her the 
 unpardonable sin, and it was a sin her husband had com- 
 mitted more than once. 
 
 Nevertheless, outwardly all was serene in their relations. 
 Kitty had many kinds of pride, and one was not to let the 
 world know that she was not as ineffably happy as she had 
 been in the first days of her marriage. With the finality 
 
JOHN MORLAND 153 
 
 of youth she concluded that all marriages were probably 
 as little satisfactory as her own, but since the married 
 people of her acquaintance did not air their grievances in 
 public, but seemed to jog along together very comfortably, 
 she would be "game" too, and hide her troubles from the 
 world. The world included her mother, or rather, was 
 most of all her mother, and here it was not alone Kitty's 
 pride that urged her to concealment; it was a new-bom 
 tenderness and consideration for the mother, who, she now 
 began to perceive, would suffer more acutely in her 
 daughter's sorrows than in her own. 
 
 But if Kitty thought she had effectually concealed her 
 troubles from her mother, then she had not yet learned the 
 almost preternatural keenness of a mother's mental vision, 
 or preternatural sensitiveness to atmospheres where a child 
 is concerned. Mrs. McCabe knew that the Kitty who sat 
 and sewed with her in the mornings in her pleasant parlour, 
 while the sweet spring air came through the open windows 
 and gently stirred the muslin curtains, was not the light- 
 hearted Kitty, bubbling over with happiness, that had 
 been used to spend the mornings with her there before that 
 dinner at Kalorama. 
 
 Indeed, it was from that dinner she very accurately dated 
 the change in her. Kitty had gone up to see her mother 
 the morning after, as she had told her husband she must, 
 and had spent an hour in relating every bit of gossip con- 
 nected with the evening that she thought would interest 
 her. She had dwelt particularly upon the gallantry of the 
 British Ambassador, the kindness her charming hostess 
 had shown her, and the attentions with which Clay and 
 Webster had distinguished her; all of which she knew 
 would delight her mother. But her mother felt that the 
 
154 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 gay recital rang a little false, and in the days that followed 
 this intangible cloud that had dimmed Kitty's bright eyes 
 seemed to her rather to grow deeper than to prove, as she 
 had hoped, a passing cloud. It was one of the reasons 
 why she had insisted that Kitty and her husband should 
 come home. Whatever the trouble — and she did not 
 intend to pry into Kitty's affairs, or make an effort to 
 discover a cause for the loss of her light-heartedness — she 
 believed that the brightness it should be her constant 
 endeavour to throw around Kitty, and the sense of a 
 mother's strong, sustaining love that she should manage 
 to imostentatiously communicate to her, could not help 
 but cheer and comfort this idolized child, no matter what 
 had gone wrong. 
 
 She found that she had judged rightly, in a measiu-e. 
 Insensibly Kitty's face brightened and she seemed more 
 like the happy-hearted, care-free girl of old. Mrs. 
 McCabe's own spirits visibly rose with Kitty's. She 
 began to believe she had been wrong in thinking there 
 had ever been any trouble, and she took herself roundly to 
 task for having given way to weak and panicky imaginings. 
 And then, suddenly, into this new sense of security and 
 happiness that was giving Mrs. McCabe back her youth 
 in giving her back her light-hearted daughter, there fell 
 a thunderbolt from a clear sky. 
 
 The spring was fast deepening into summer, and with 
 the Lieutenant down at the Navy Yard attending to his own 
 affairs, or up at the Capitol helping Major Morland with 
 the arduous business of the campaign, it came to be a 
 habit with mother and daughter to take long walks 
 together. Mrs. McCabe had all an Englishwoman's 
 fondness for walking and, if Kitty had not fully inherited 
 
JOHN MORLAND 155 
 
 > 
 
 it, her mother thought it better exercise for her than riding 
 or driving, and Kitty at this period was unwontedly docile 
 to all her mother's suggestions. 
 
 It was the fifth of May, and It had been very warm, even 
 for a Washington May day, and so they had deferred their 
 walk until rather late in the afternoon. The charm 
 of the springtime — blossoming hedges, and fresh 
 green foliage, and air heavy laden with a thousand sweet 
 odours, and throbbing with the spring songs of mating 
 birds — drew them irresistibly to country roads, and 
 almost before they knew it they stood on the banks 
 of Rock Creek where the ford crossed it which had 
 proved itself a mischief-making ford on the night of 
 the dance at Brown's, and thrown Kitty into Montclair's 
 willing arms. 
 
 It is not probable that Kitty recalled that incident at 
 this moment; life had become too real and too absorbing 
 of late for any early experiences to have retained their 
 vividness for her. Just below the ford was one of the 
 deepest pools on the creek, where the stream narrowed so 
 that the overhanging oaks and maples interlaced their 
 branches from the opposite banks which were at this time 
 of the year covered with a carpet of purple violets, gor- 
 geous to the eye, deep and soft as velvet pile to the foot, 
 and fragrant as an English violet bank. It had been a 
 favourite spot with Kitty in her childhood, but she had 
 not visited it for years. The restrictions of boarding- 
 school life were responsible for that, and now, catching a 
 gleam of the brilliant purple imder the trees, she uttered 
 a cry of delight. 
 
 "Come, mother," she exclaimed, seizing her hand and 
 dragging her along with all the hurry and excitement of a 
 
156 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 child who fears her treasure will escape her if she lingers a 
 moment. 
 
 She threw herself down on the purple bank, and buried 
 her face in the fragrant flowers with girlish abandon, while 
 her mother sat beside her and watched her with happy 
 eyes. When she lifted her head, her face was flushed, her 
 eyes were sparkling, her hat had fallen back and her 
 chestnut curls had fallen forward over her face in a 
 bewildering tangle. She might easily be the little Kitty 
 that had presented herself in the dining-room four years 
 before and roused her father's wrath. It was of that very 
 day she was thinking, and it was that thought that had 
 brought the sparkle and glow of a child to her face. 
 
 " Mother," she said, happily, " do you know the last time 
 I was here ? It was that afternoon Emmeline and I were 
 fishing, and we took off our shoes and stockings and went 
 wading in the creek; and then had to go home barefooted 
 because we dropped them in the water and they were so 
 wet we could n't put them on again. And father was so 
 angry with me because I went in to see Greneral Jacksoa 
 without stopping to fix — do you remember, mother?" 
 
 Mrs. McCabe remembered very well. It seemed to her, 
 in looking back, that that was the last day of Kitty's 
 childhood, and how intensely at this moment she longed to 
 put her little Kitty back to that day once more. She 
 remembered how quickly on its heels had followed the 
 dance at Georgetown, the attempted elopement, boarding- 
 school, and her separation from her daughter, and then, 
 marriage! Oh, yes, she remembered only too well. But 
 Kitty was thinking of none of these things for the moment. 
 For the moment she was virtually the child Kitty once 
 more, and she said happily: 
 
JOHN MORLAND 157 
 
 "To-morrow I believe I will bring Emmeline and go 
 fishing again — yes, and wading, too, if you '11 come along, 
 mother, and stand guard to keep off intruders." 
 
 She laughed at the thought, the rippling, joyous laugh 
 of childhood that her mother had not heard for years, and 
 so lost was she in the joy of watching Kitty and listening 
 to her happy babble that it was Kitty who first discovered 
 that twilight had fallen under the shade of the overarching 
 trees, and they must make haste indeed if they would be 
 home before dark. 
 
 It was not so far by the short cuts Kitty knew, and they 
 were soon in sight of McCabe's Tavern; but the latter part 
 of the way Kitty had lost all her happy sparkle, and now, 
 as they came in sight of home and the lights streaming 
 palely from the windows into the rosy afterglow, she said 
 soberly enough: 
 
 " Mother, do you think there is a definite time, a day or 
 an hour, when childhood ends and womanhood begins ? " 
 
 It was the very question that Mrs. McCabe had been 
 conning, but she answered guardedly: 
 
 "I should hardly think so, daughter. I should think 
 it must be by insensible gradations that we pass from one 
 to the other, unless — sometimes — there might be an 
 epoch-making event in one's life that would sweep one 
 suddenly over the boundary line." 
 
 Kitty sighed lightly. 
 
 "What is it, Kitty?" Mrs. McCabe strove to keep all 
 excess of sympathy out of her tones. She was trying to 
 act as a tonic for this dearly loved child, and her r6le was 
 to be inspiriting and invigorating, if possible, even at the 
 expense of the tenderness she so longed to show. 
 
 Kitty hesitated a moment, but only a moment. 
 
158 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 "I think, mother," she said, slowly, "that night of the 
 dancing-school at Brown's Hotel in Georgetown was an 
 epoch-making night for me. I think I crossed the 
 boundary then." 
 
 Her mother could not answer. She thought so, too. And 
 for a moment such a wave of regret swept over her, such 
 longing to put time back and blot that fateful evening out 
 of her child's life, that it well-nigh overcame her, and she 
 dared not trust her voice. 
 
 And at that moment out of the blue fell the bolt. 
 
 There was an unsteady step behind them, and 
 suddenly in the dusk a hand grasped Kitty's arm none too 
 gently. 
 
 "Whatchudoin' out at this time ov night, Kitty?" said 
 a thick voice. 
 
 Kitty was startled. She uttered a half-suppressed 
 scream and sprang loose from the clutch on her arm. Her 
 scream and her avoidance of him angered Sutherland, and 
 he was not himself. 
 
 "Whatchu mean! you fool!" he shouted roughly, and 
 advanced toward her. 
 
 Kitty did not scream this time, but even in the rapidly 
 falling dusk her mother could see that she turned deadly 
 pale. She put out an arm to support Kitty, fearing that 
 she would fall, but the movement was the match to Suther- 
 land's inflammable temper. He pushed rudely between 
 his wife and her mother to separate them, and used more 
 strength than he knew. Mrs. McCabe staggered back, 
 but Kitty fell to the ground. Her nerves were in no con- 
 dition to stand a shock of this kind; in a moment she was 
 in violent hysteria, uttering one piercing scream after 
 another. Her husband was sobered in an instant, and on 
 
JOHN MORLAND 159 
 
 his knees beside her, imploring her to forgive him, calling 
 himself every vile name, and using every endearing term 
 to her, but not once daring to touch her. Kitty lay in her 
 mother's arms, who held her in a strong and tender clasp, 
 murmuring over her and soothing her as she would a baby. 
 
 "There, Kitty! It 's all right, darling! Will did not 
 mean it, mother's precious. He loves you, Kitty; he 
 would not hurt you for the world. My little darling! 
 My baby!" 
 
 Gradually her voice, strong and cheerful, and the firm 
 clasp of her arms, reached the citadel of Kitty's senses, 
 and the screams began to subside. It was dusk, and the 
 little side-street, through which they were making a short 
 cut, was deserted; the nearest house was McCabe's 
 Tavern, and so this piteous spectacle had had no curious 
 onlookers. But now, as Kitty began to get control of her- 
 self, and her screams died away into low meanings, there 
 came through the door of McCabe's a dark figure, and 
 hurried towards them. He came upon them all unob- 
 served by the three, so deeply were they absorbed in their 
 own emotions, and found Kitty still lying on the ground in 
 her mother's arms, half sobbing, half moaning, and Suther- 
 land still on his knees beside her, pouring out a torrent of 
 penitent prayers and self-revilings. 
 
 "My God, Mrs. McCabe, what does this mean?" he 
 exclaimed in a low tone. 
 
 Mrs. McCabe looked up startled, and for a moment 
 displeased that there should be any outsider present, even 
 so kindly a one as she knew Morland to be. Then she 
 answered brightly: 
 
 "It's nothing. Major, though it sounded like a great 
 deal. Will came up behind us in the dark and frightened 
 
160 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 Kitty into hysterics. But you 're all right now, are n't 
 you, Kitty?" 
 
 Kitty's "Yes" was hardly audible, but she struggled 
 to rise. 
 
 Morland had cast one swift, suspicious glance at 
 Sutherland, still on his knees "drivelling," as he named it 
 to himself, and then he sprang to help Kitty to her feet, 
 for still her husband dared not touch her. Kitty, 
 exhausted by the violence of the hysteria, was supported 
 on either side by her mother and Morland to the door of the 
 tavern, her husband following meekly behind. But at the 
 door Morland stopped and called sharply to the Lieutenant: 
 
 "Here, Sutherland, help your wife into the house!" 
 
 It was a serious defect in the construction of the house 
 that the only entrance — unless one went around through 
 the door of the kitchen, swarming with gossip-loving blacks 
 — was into that great dining-hall, likely at this hour of 
 the evening to be rapidly filling up with the habitues of the 
 card-tables. Morland knew it would never do for Kitty 
 to pass through that room supported by any other man 
 than her husband. He watched the Lieutenant awkwardly 
 take his place, and then he turned on his heel and strode 
 swiftly off toward his old refuge on the slopes of Capitol 
 Hill. 
 
 In Mrs. McCabe's pleasant parlour, lying on a luxurious 
 couch, Kitty was mothered and petted, soothed with cool- 
 ing drinks, and cheered with comforting broths, mother 
 and husband hovering around her with loving little atten- 
 tions, until the colour began to come back to her cheek and 
 the smile to her eye. 
 
 "I 'm a great baby," she said, looking up fondly at her 
 mother, "and I 'm dreadfuUy ashamed!" 
 
JOHN MORLAND 161 
 
 "And ypu forgive me, Kitty?" Sutherland broke in, 
 eager to seize the first moment of returning happiness. 
 
 "Oh, of course, I forgive you," said Kitty, looking away 
 from her mother and letting her glance fall rather wearily 
 on her husband. " Of course I know you did n't mean it. 
 Will." 
 
 Her husband seized the hand drooping over the side of 
 the couch, and covered it with repentant kisses, mingled 
 with some half-maudlin tears. 
 
 Kitty submitted patiently, too patiently, her mother 
 thought, who was watching her anxiously. Sutherland's 
 repentance was genuine, there was no doubt about that, 
 and so when it came time for them to go upstairs to their 
 own room Mrs. McCabe was not afraid to trust Kitty 
 to him. For this night, at least, no husband could be 
 tenderer than he would be. 
 
 But hours after the young husband and the young wife 
 had forgotten their sins and their wrongs in the sleep that 
 always comes to youth, the mother was lying awake, her- 
 ears pierced again by those dreadful screams, and her 
 heart more cruelly pierced by the awful knowledge that 
 had come upon her so suddenly. 
 
 Kitty had married a drunkard! And in her heart Kitty 
 no longer loved her husband; with difficulty she endured 
 him. 
 
 Long and sleepless and terrible are the nights that 
 lie before the mother who has come into such bitter 
 knowledge. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 ON THE BANKS OF THE KANAWHA 
 
 THAT summer of 1824 was the busiest, the most 
 rushing, the most absorbing, that Morland had 
 heretofore known. 
 
 It was the long session of Congress, but by the first of 
 June, fully a month before it could end, both Jackson and 
 Morland decided that campaign affairs demanded their 
 presence in Tennessee. They would get a leave of absence 
 or take it — it did not much matter which. 
 
 They were to make the long journey together on horse- 
 back, and the early days of June saw them riding under 
 leafy arches, over woodland roads gay with wild azalea and 
 wild rose, swimming rushing fords and climbing steep and 
 picturesque mountain passes. It was a journey just to the 
 hearts of the two men who both loved the outdoor world 
 unspoiled by the hand of man. At night they slept in 
 whatever cabin or mansion they found themselves nearest, 
 for no man denied them food and shelter, and every man, 
 the rudest mountaineer or the most cultured civiliaa, was 
 proud indeed to play host to the great Hero of New 
 Orleans. 
 
 Morland had his man with him, his trusty black Jeff, 
 without whom he never stirred; and Jeff acted as valet, 
 groom and body-guard both to the old General and himself. 
 Jeff was no more of a restraint to conversation than Kitty's 
 Emmeline, and on those long rides through the golden 
 
 162 
 
THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 163 
 
 June days, up the beautiful Shenandoah valley and along 
 the Kanawha to the mountains of eastern Tennessee, there 
 were not many subjects in heaven or earth that they did 
 not touch upon. 
 
 Chiefly, of course, their talk was of the campaign and 
 their plans for the summer's work. 
 
 "Well," said Morland, as they were riding quietly 
 through a narrow mountain defile, the clear, brown water 
 of the Kanawha dancing noisily over its rocky bed a few 
 feet below them, and the high hills on either side, verdure 
 clad to their summits, throwing their path into grateful 
 shade although it was only a little past noon, "Well, this 
 b a beautiful country and a beautiful valley, and it leads 
 straight up to that little town in Pennsylvania where your 
 Presidential bark was launched." 
 
 "What little town? What do you mean?" asked 
 Jackson, who for the moment did not understand 
 Morland. 
 
 "You know what we Democrats say," returned Morland. 
 "'As Pennsylvania goes, so goes the Union,' and Penn- 
 sylvania was supposed to be solid for Calhoun. In Penn- 
 sylvania they have still another saying: 'As old Mother 
 Cumberland goes, so goes the State,' and down in the 
 county seat of Cumberland the town fathers had met in 
 solemn conclave to put Calhoun in nomination. They 
 had arranged all the preliminaries, and were just about to 
 take the final step, when a gentleman arose quietly and said : 
 'Suppose we nominate Jackson instead.' In a moment the 
 meeting was in an uproar of delight and you were 
 nominated with wild acclamations. As soon as Harri.«- 
 burg and Philadelphia heard what Carlisle had done they 
 rushed to do likewise. The Jackson wave swept the state 
 
164 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 and Calhoun was n't thought of again except for second 
 place. The men of Carlisle are very proud of being the 
 first in the field, and they claim if you are elected it will be 
 all their doing. And they insist more proudly than ever — 
 'As old Mother Cumberland goes, so goes the State!' 
 But surely you have heard the story before ?" scanning the 
 Greneral keenly and a little incredulously. 
 
 The General's eye was twinkling. 
 
 "Yes, I 've heard it before, but I like to hear you tell it," 
 he said with a glance of affection at the younger man. 
 "It 's a pleasant thing to hear one's own praises so well 
 sung." 
 
 " It 's a wonderful thing, sir, to stir men's hearts as you 
 do," said Morland almost solemnly. "From the Alle- 
 ghanies to the Gulf this whole broad land is ringing with 
 your name. I wonder how you feel!" 
 
 "It is wonderful," returned the other simply. "I do 
 not often realize it, but when I do I feel very proud of the 
 love of my fellow citizens and very grateful to my Maker 
 that He has given it to me." 
 
 Morland looked up at the rugged old soldier, towering 
 above him, with an air of deference that came near to being 
 reverence. He was half-way through his thirties and 
 Jackson was only just entering on his fifties, so the dif- 
 ference in their ages could not have been very great, but 
 Jackson was broken by the hardships of a soldier's life, 
 and still more broken by the woimds he bore about him 
 from his early duels, while Morland was one of those rarely 
 endowed men who have received the gift of perennial youth. 
 To the old General he would never be anything but a boy, 
 and Morland regarded Jackson with an affection that was 
 genuinely filial. 
 
JOHN MORLAND 165 
 
 It was this feeling that he entertained for him that pre- 
 vented his taking umbrage at the old soldier's next remark. 
 
 "John," said Jackson bluntly, and apparently irrel- 
 evantly, "I wish you had married Kitty instead of that 
 young fop. I have always said that with the right kind of 
 husband she would make a grand woman, but I doubt if 
 he 's the right kind." 
 
 If John had been twenty he could not have coloured 
 more violently, nor, for the moment, looked more foolishly 
 resentful. It was only for a moment, however; then his 
 black look cleared away and he answered quietly: 
 
 "I 'm afraid you are right, sir. He 's not the man any 
 of Kitty's friends could have wished to see her marry." 
 
 The General regarded Morland curiously: 
 
 "And yet — I had forgotten it for the moment — but I 
 recall now that Sutherland has been one of your closest 
 friends this term." 
 
 " Only for Kitty's sake," responded Morland briefly. 
 
 The General smiled. 
 
 "Staunch and loyal as ever! And now I can say to you 
 frankly what I started to say. I don't believe Sutherland 
 has the strength of character to keep a woman like Kitty 
 in love with him, nor the right kind of courage to protect 
 her from designing villains she ought to be protected from. 
 The night before we left I was at dinner at Mrs. Decatur's, 
 and I overheard that Miss Dayton — by the way, there 's 
 a woman I cannot learn to like — I overheard her say to 
 Montclair,whom I regard as ten times the fop Sutherland is, 
 and a good deal of a villain besides — I heard her say to him : 
 
 "'In my opinion any man that wanted to carry on a 
 flirtation with Kitty Sjitherland would find it quite as 
 easy as with Kitty McCabe.' " 
 
166 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 "My God! She said that to Montclairf" 
 
 For the moment Morland was startled out of all sense 
 of prudence. He forgot that the General knew of no 
 reason why it should be a little worse to say this to Mont- 
 clair than to any other man living. 
 
 "What did Montelair say ?" he demanded grimly, with- 
 out waiting for a reply to his first startled question. 
 
 "Nothing," responded the General as grimly, " but the 
 two exchanged a look that stamped them both in my mind 
 as damnable villains, and made me shudder for my poor 
 little Kitty with only a man of straw to be responsible for 
 her reputation." 
 
 Morland made no response to this. He was submerged 
 in an instant in an avalanche of mental questionings. 
 Should he turn his horse about and go back to Washington 
 to protect Kitty ? There was some understanding between 
 Miss Dayton and Montelair — he had caught glimpses of 
 it before — and he knew that the glance the General had 
 surprised might easily mean even deeper villainy than the 
 General suspected. But if he were in Washington what 
 could he do? Should he warn Kitty? She would only 
 laugh at him. Should he put her husband on his guard ? 
 It would without doubt rouse Sutherland's suspicions 
 and make him insanely jealous of Kitty; but Morland 
 believed it would be Kitty that would have to suffer in 
 such case, and not Montelair. If he were there himself h^ 
 could watch, and he believed with a vigilance that would 
 frustrate the cleverest of designs, but could he forsake 
 Jackson for Kitty? Had he any right? Were they not 
 hurrying home now before the session was over simply 
 because the claims of the campaign were so urgent? 
 Jackson, deserted now by one of his closest friends and, as 
 
JOHN MORLAND 167 
 
 Morland knew, without any undue conceit, one of his most 
 efficient lieutenants, might easily spell defeat in November. 
 Morland groaned in spirit; this clashing of duties or clash- 
 ing of desires was more than he felt equal to adjusting. He 
 did not know that he had groaned aloud, but he must have 
 made some sound betokening at least perturbation. 
 
 "What is it, John? "asked the General, bending on him 
 the kindliest glance of his kindly eyes. 
 
 "Kitty!" responded John, briefly. 
 
 But almost in the act of speaking her name his face 
 cleared. A solution of the difficulty had presented itself 
 to him, and he wondered why he had not thought of it 
 before. He would write to Kitty's mother. She would 
 understand why Montclair was particularly to be dreaded 
 and guarded against, and she was the only one who could 
 fully understand. Moreover, such implicit reliance had 
 Morland upon Mrs. McCabe's cleverness, sagacity, and 
 untiring watchfulness that he could trust her as he would 
 trust himself, or rather, far better than he could trust him- 
 self, since she would have all the opportunities for watch- 
 fulness that would be impossible to him, even if he were 
 still in Washington. He determined to send his letter 
 from whatever place they should put up for the night — 
 no time should be lost — and having settled upon that he 
 felt that everything had been done for Kitty that merely 
 human agency could devise, and rode on with a lighter 
 heart. 
 
 Nor was Kitty's name mentioned again by either of them 
 through the four days that remained of their long ride. 
 Doubtless Morland often thought of her, but the General 
 was absorbed in the details of the campaign, and there was 
 no room for the discussion of other topics. 
 
168 THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 
 
 The long shadows were on the grass when they turned 
 from the Nashville turnpike into the leafy lane leading 
 up to The Hermitage. It had been a triumphal progress 
 from the city out, friends and neighbours and an innumer- 
 able rabble of blacks, old and young, swelling the caval- 
 cade at every plantation along the route. 
 
 As they passed into the lane through the gates held wide 
 open by grinning pickaninnies, redbirds and mocking- 
 birds and wood thrushes were filling the air with music; 
 there were the sounds of happy bustle and cheery Negro 
 voices hurrying on the preparations for supper; from 
 the kitchen behind the house stole the odours of frying 
 chicken and steaming coffee, as delicious to a hungry man 
 as the fragrance of crape-myrtle and jessamine that was 
 filling the evening air; and best of all, on the wide gallery 
 with its roof supported by tall white columns, stood Rachel 
 the beloved, in her afternoon dress of spotless dimity, 
 waiting with smiling face to greet her husband. The 
 old chieftain turned to Morland, who still rode by his side. 
 
 "I wonder how I could ever have left all this peace and 
 happiness," he said gravely, "for the turmoil of Washing- 
 ton and Congress ? And I wonder if I will not some day 
 regret it still more if the people should send me back as 
 President." 
 
 Morland did not reply. It was his duty to keep the hero 
 inspired and eager for the race, but for the moment it 
 seemed to him, too, all vain and profitless to give up for 
 empty honour and sure vexation and strife the ideal life 
 of a planter on the broad and fruitful acres of The Her- 
 mitage, with its hundreds of slaves devoted to their master 
 as to a father, and with the love of such a wife as Rachel. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 AN ABRIVAL IN WASHINGTON 
 
 BUT although on their return to The Hermitage both 
 Jackson and Morland had been lured by its aspect of 
 peace and quiet, there was little of either in its wide halls 
 and shady groves through the summer of 1824. The Gen- 
 eral rarely found a chance to ride down to his broad cotton- 
 fields, the pride of his heart, and never to sit alone with 
 Rachel on the wide galleries in the cool of the evening and 
 listen to the mocking-birds, as they had together listened to 
 them for years, singing mad love songs to the moon. The 
 hitching rail at the side of the house was tied full of horses 
 all day long and far into the night, and halls and galleries 
 and lawns were thronged day in and day out with a restless 
 tide of coming and going guests. Such hospitality as The 
 Hermitage offered that summer would be almost impos- 
 sible in these days without the multitude of house servants 
 who prepared the great dinner at noonday, and had it 
 cleared away just in time to place the smoking supper on 
 the long table by early candle light; while all through the 
 hot afternoon there were constant streams of mint juleps 
 and other cooling drinks borne from the dining-room to the 
 shaded and breezy galleries by relays of small darkies. 
 
 There were no wires in those days to flash the news 
 of the November election over the land, but it is wonderful 
 how little time it took for the remotest country hamlet to 
 learn that Jackson had received a plurality, but no 
 
 169 
 
170 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 majority. It came by post, by courier, by private message 
 but more than all by that mysterious vehicle "They say." 
 Among the Negroes of the South there was, during slavery 
 days, an underground system of conveying intelligence 
 that flashed it from plantation to plantation with almost 
 the speed of the electric wire, and that often seemed to 
 the whites impossible of accomplishment without some 
 occult and supernatural aid. It was largely by their 
 agency, no doubt, that in an incredibly short space of time 
 after the election Jackson and his friends knew that they 
 could only count on the plurality. But they were not 
 dismayed. They knew, too, that of the four candidates, 
 Adams, Jackson, Crawford, and Clay, Clay, the popular 
 idol had trailed far behind and was out of the running. 
 Jackson had only to contend with the austere and 
 unsympathetic Adams and with Crawford, a paralytic and 
 a hopeless invalid. The contest was virtually between 
 Jackson and Adams. 
 
 In the minds of Jackson's friends his election was so 
 assured that they persuaded him to take Mrs. Jackson 
 with him to Washington, and in great state they made the 
 journey through wild forests and over mountain passes, 
 with the mud of winter often so deep that the grand coach 
 sank into it over the hubs and with difficulty the four horses 
 could accomplish a mile an hour. 
 
 Morland had left Tennessee some weeks after Jack- 
 sons's cortfege had set out, but being on horseback and 
 alone he had overtaken them in the beautiful Shenandoah 
 valley, not now smiling under June skies, and had brought 
 his pace down to their slow one, and so made his entrance 
 into Washington with them. He left them at Gadsby's 
 and turned his horse's head toward his old quarters at 
 
JOHN MORLAND 171 
 
 McCabe's. He could not tell -why he should feel such 
 reluctance in seeking his old home. Heretofore he had 
 always sought it with a sense of pleasure and rather eager 
 haste ; now he was trying to invent reasons for returning 
 to Gadsby's and the Jacksons. He ought to see that Mrs. 
 Jackson was comfortably settled; there were points still 
 remaining to be discussed with the General. 
 
 In his heart he knew he was but quibbling with himself; 
 the Jacksons had Major Lewis with them, and could want 
 for no aid in getting settled, and there was the whole winter 
 before him for the discussion of political points with the 
 General. He might as well face it : his reluctance was due 
 to a strange fear of meeting Kitty. 
 
 She had been in the background of his thoughts all 
 summer, but he had heard almost nothing of her. Two 
 brief notes from Mrs. McCabe — one in reply to his letter 
 of warning and the other in reply to a second letter from 
 him — had said that Kitty and Sutherland were well, but 
 he had not been entirely reassured by that statement. 
 Kitty seemed to him so thoroughly capable of the unex- 
 pected, what might he not find she had been doing 
 and people had been saying of her in these six months 
 of absence ? 
 
 He dismounted at the well-known door and gave his 
 bridle to black Jeff. Very naturally the door was not 
 standing open, since it was winter, but the bare trees about 
 the house, the closed door, and the absence of cheery wel- 
 coming Negro voices struck him with a sense of chill. He 
 had given no notice of the day of his return, and he could 
 not be surprised that he was not expected; but this air of 
 desertion was in striking contrast to the stir and bustle at 
 Gadsby's, where the whole force had turned out to welcome 
 
172 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 General Jackson's coach and four, and he felt sensitively 
 alive to the dreariness of it. 
 
 He opened the door and entered the big dining-hall, 
 expecting nothing less than Tim McCabe's loud and 
 pompous greeting; but no Tim McCabe was there. It 
 was not an hour at which to expect either loungers or 
 diners, but he never remembered before to have foimd that 
 room utterly deserted; there was sure always to be a Negro 
 at the bar or Tim himself at the desk — could anything 
 have happened? , 
 
 There were sounds of voices from Mrs. McCabe's 
 parlour. He had intended going to his room to remove 
 the soil of travel before presenting himself to Mrs. McCabe, 
 for he was fastidious in matters of the toilet, but the aspect 
 of the place alarmed him and he stepped at once to her 
 door. What he saw there held him motionless at the 
 threshold a full minute. 
 
 Ranged round the walls of the room were most of the 
 black servants of the household, their eyes shining and 
 showing their white teeth in broad grins of delight. Suther- 
 land was leaning over the tall back of an easy chair, in 
 which Kitty sat, with an unmistakable air of anxious 
 devotion, and Mrs. McCabe was bending over her 
 carefully adjusting a white and fleecy shawl about her 
 shoulders. 
 
 It was the sight of Kitty that took Morland's breath 
 away. She was not the radiantly beautiful woman of his 
 remembrance, glowing with health and a wonderful 
 vitality, but she was an etherealized and transfigured 
 replica of her. Through the transparent flesh Morland 
 saw the leapings of the spirit in the delicate colour that 
 flamed and faded in her cheek, and the angels that looked 
 
JOHN MORLAND 173 
 
 out of her eyes were not the mischievous and daring 
 sprites that used to mock him in Kitty's laughing gray ones. 
 He followed their soft gaze now and saw what had made 
 them glow with such angelic brightness : Kitty was looking 
 at her father, who was holding in his arms a little bundle 
 of lawn and lace over which he was crooning with fatuous 
 smiles. 
 
 Kitty a mother 1 Such a possibility had never occurred 
 to him, and for some reason that he could not explain the 
 thought appalled him. He turned and fled precipitately 
 up the stairs, fearing at every step that he would be dis- 
 covered and called back, and perhaps compelled to hold 
 that tiny morsel of humanity in his arms ! He shuddered 
 at the thought, and blessed his stars that every eye had 
 been so glued to the baby or its mother that no one had 
 seen him. 
 
 In the stronghold of his own room he rang his bell 
 violently. It was answered immediately by one of the 
 Negroes who had been so absorbed in the baby a moment 
 before. The Negro was still grinning and he was panting 
 from his quick run up the stairs. 
 
 "Howdy, Marse Morland, howdy," he exclaimed in 
 delighted welcome, and then, in the same breath: 
 
 "Huccom yuh done git in widouten nobody see yoh! 
 Dem niggers jes gone plum crazy ober Miss Kit an' her 
 baby, an' dey 's all celebraten now 'cause she 's down stahs 
 in ole Miss' room fer de fustest time. Niggers is shore 
 fool critters," he added cunningly, seeing that Morland 
 was in a far from jubilant mood. 
 
 But Morland thought it incumbent on him to make a 
 suitable response to the black boy's information. 
 
 "Ah, I had not heard," he said, in his stateliest 
 
174 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 fashion. "Present my compliments to Mrs. Sutherland 
 and my congratulations to the father. A son and heir, 
 I suppose?" 
 
 "No, sah, it am a gyerl, sah, an' de spittin' image ob its 
 mammy, Emmeline say. But huccom dat yaller gyerl 
 can prognosticate dat 's more 'n I c'n tell." 
 
 Morland had heard enough of Kitty's baby. 
 
 " Go and send Jeff to me at once," he ordered sharply, 
 and Joe shuffled nimbly off, muttering to himself: 
 
 " De Major's shore nuff an ole bach. He done got no 
 use for babies." 
 
 A half hour later Morland, fresh from a bath and in all 
 the glory of spotless linen, sat in a comfortable chair while 
 Jeff vigorously polished his high calf boots. 
 
 "Jeff," he asked, hesitatingly, "when a — ah — an 
 infant arrives in a friend's family what is the proper thing 
 to do?" 
 
 Jeff looked up from his work with his brush suspended 
 in the air. His face was absolutely blank of all expression, 
 for he had heard the news and Joe's account of his master's 
 reception of it. 
 
 "Oh," he said in an offhand manner, "yoh jes sen' em 
 a silber cup, I reckon, or mebbe a spoon or some Uttle 
 sooveenur like dat." 
 
 " Oh, of course," returned the Major irritably, " but that 
 is not what I mean. What is the proper thing to do when 
 you — ah — meet the infant ?" 
 
 Jeff had resumed his work, but he suspended operations 
 again and looked up, still the picture of innocence. 
 
 " Oh, dat 's plum easy, sah. Fust-off , yoh takes it in 
 yoh ahms an' kisses it. And den, ef it 's well growed, 
 yoh foss it up to the ceilin' an' say — loud like — 'Hi, dar, 
 
JOHN MORLAND 175 
 
 yoh young coon!' But ef it's on'y a teentsy one, yoh 
 jiggle it on yoh knee an' say — soft like — 'Ah, goo-goo, 
 leetle guzzly-gozzlin,' er somepin like dat." 
 
 Je£F dropped his eyes to his work to conceal the twinkle 
 in them that he could no longer suppress at sight of the 
 blank consternation depicted on the Major's countenance. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 clay's hour 
 
 13 UT though Jackson's friends were so sure of his 
 ■■-' success that they had persuaded him to take Mrs. 
 Jackson with him to Washington, there was yet one ele- 
 ment which they had not failed to take into consideration, 
 and which counted for uncertainty: the part Clay would 
 play in the decision. Clay was the Speaker of the 
 House; his influence with the members was unbounded; 
 and the candidate that secured it was the candidate 
 who would win. 
 
 They could not forget Jackson's ancient and bitter 
 hostility to Clay, but they were comforted by three things. 
 One was the fact that Clay himself had been, all through the 
 Monroe administration, equally bitter against Adams, 
 Monroe's Secretary of State; the second comforting fact 
 was that Jackson and Clay had seemed to biu-y their dif- 
 ferences, and through the preceding winter had been, at 
 least outwardly, civil to each other; but most of all they 
 counted on the great statesman's sense of justice and love 
 of fair play that would not permit him to throw the weight 
 of his powerful influence against the man who was 
 undoubtedly the people's choice. 
 
 None the less the Jackson people were uneasy, and the 
 Adams people were no less so. No man in Washington 
 was ever more courted than Clay in that December of 1824. 
 Apparently he had nothing to gain and nothing to lose 
 
 176 
 
THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 177 
 
 whichever way it went, for both parties had made it 
 perfectly plain by official hints that he was sure of the 
 portfolio of State should their man be elected. Clay 
 smiFed to himself, received the hints blandly and blindly, 
 and kept his own counsel. 
 
 Morland had recovered from his panic over Kitty's 
 baby, and was now settled down to the hard work of the 
 campaign; for no one for a moment considered that this 
 memorable campaign of '24 ended with the November 
 election. He was a brave man, and being a brave man he 
 had resolved — while Jeff was bringing his boots to that 
 high state of polish which perfectly reflected his two rows 
 of shining teeth — to beard the lion in his den and at once. 
 In other words, that the moment Jeff should release him he 
 would march down stairs and pay his respects to Mrs. 
 McCabe and Kitty and — the baby. 
 
 Which resolve he put into instant execution, but in only 
 one respect did he carry out Jeff's instructions. He had 
 been received with unaffected delight by Mrs. McCabe and 
 Kitty, and, the first cordial greetings over, Mrs. McCabe 
 took the sleeping baby from Emmeline, who was holding 
 it on her lap, and laid it in Morland's arms. She did not 
 wait for him to look at it, she did not even ask him if he 
 would like to hold it, but simply and naturally, as if there 
 could be no question of his desire, she gave it to him. As 
 simply and naturally he received it, and as he felt the warm 
 little bundle nestling close to him, quite unconsciously 
 he lifted the soft cheek to his lips. Then he turned to 
 Kitty and laid her child in her arms so gravely, almost 
 solemnly, that Kitty looked up at him with her eyes shining 
 through the quick tears that sprang to them. 
 
 "Kitty is safe," said Morland to himself as he turned 
 
178 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 away. "I need not have feared. God has sent her a 
 guardian angel." 
 
 In the two weeks that followed he had seen Kitty and 
 the baby every day, and he had discovered a wonderful 
 deftness in handling the wee morsel that delighted and 
 amused Kitty and her mother and charmed the baby, 
 who promptly went off to sleep the moment Morland took 
 her in his arms, no matter how fretful she may have been. 
 
 But all thoughts of Kitty and her baby were excluded 
 from Morland's room. Nothing within those precincts 
 was allowed to intrude upon the grim exigences of cam- 
 paign work. In that room, one afternoon in the latter part 
 of December, there were, as usual, two or three of Jack- 
 son's friends discussing his prospects. 
 
 " I tell you," said Benton, who was now as enthusiastic 
 for Jackson as he had been for Clay as long as there had 
 been the least hope for his candidate, "I tell you, you don't 
 half realize Clay's power. You are counting on Mis- 
 souri, Kentucky, and Ohio because they have declared for 
 Jackson as second choice; but Clay can do what he pleases 
 with their Representatives, and they will vote exactly as 
 he tells them." 
 
 " Oh, come," said Morland pleasantly, " it 's perfectly 
 natural you should think Clay is a tremendous power, 
 and he is, but you are magnifying him a little when you 
 think he can persuade Representatives to vote counter to 
 their state's instructions." 
 
 " I know of what I am speaking,"returned Benton grimly. 
 "I have had humiliating proof of it. When I talk to 
 Missouri's sole Representative, John Scott, I apparently 
 convince him that there is but one line of action for him: 
 to vote as his state votes; and he gives me his promise to 
 
JOHN MORLAND 179 
 
 cast his vote for Jackson. But my back is hardly turned 
 before he begins to waver, and at Clay's first word he is all 
 for Adams, and sends me a humble apology and a retrac- 
 tion of his promise." 
 
 The dusk of a short December day was rapidly filling 
 the room. The three men sitting around the open fire- 
 place where blazing hickory logs made a circle of light in 
 the darkening room, were silent for a moment. Each one 
 was trying to solve for himself a knotty problem. It was 
 the third man who finally spoke, and with some hesita- 
 tion. He had been a listener through a discussion that had 
 lasted some ten minutes, offering no suggestion until now. 
 
 "Why don't some one go to see Clay and give him to 
 understand what Jackson will do for him if he gets in ? " 
 he said slowly, weighing each word, and his naturally 
 ruddy face growing redder, either from the reflection of 
 the firelight or the embarrassment of his speech. 
 
 "Not I," said Morland quickly. "Clay and I have 
 been political enemies for years, but socially we 've been 
 friends, and I am not going to risk a rupture now." 
 
 "Nor I," said Benton slowly. "Do you realize, Mr. 
 Buchanan, that you are proposing something in the nature 
 of a bribe ? Clay is a high-minded gentleman, and there 
 would be no surer way of securing his influence for the 
 other side." 
 
 "Not at all," said Buchanan blandly. "There would 
 be nothing in the nature of a bribe in mentioning Mr. 
 Jackson's intentions, which are fixed, I suppose, whether 
 Clay uses his influence for or against him, and Clay has 
 a right to know what to expect. I see nothing in the nature 
 of bribery in that." 
 
 "Perhaps not," said Benton, a little mollified, "if it was 
 
180 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 put in the right way. And I don't know any one, Mr. 
 Buchanan, quite as skilful in a delicate affair of that kind 
 as the member from Pennsylvania. And your state is so 
 solid for Jackson that anything you say will carry weight." 
 
 "My state is solid enough." Buchanan smiled as he 
 spoke. "I 've no doubt some of the counties, Bucks and 
 Perry, for instance, will go on voting for Jackson for the 
 next forty years. But I 'm willing to try what I can do 
 with Clay if neither of you will venture it." 
 
 He rose as he spoke, and added : 
 
 " I 'II go at once. It 's near dinner-time, and I will be 
 likely to catch him in his room." 
 
 The others did not try to detain him, though both were 
 still a little troubled by the ethical aspects of such a mis- 
 sion. Buchanan seemed to have no such scruples, and 
 being gifted with a certain easy savoir faire, he was not so 
 embarrassed as another man might have been at finding 
 a half-dozen of Clay's friends gathered in his room waiting 
 for dinner and smoking while they waited. Of course the 
 conversation turned on the one topic, and Buchanan had 
 a chance to say with apparent carelessness : 
 
 "I 've no doubt at all of the result, and when Jack- 
 son is elected he will form the most splendid cabinet the 
 country has ever seen." 
 
 "How could he have one as distinguished as Jeffer- 
 son's?" asked Letcher of Kentucky, Clay's close friend. 
 " Where would he be able to find men as eminent as Madi- 
 son and Gallatin?" 
 
 "He would not go out of this room for a Secretary of 
 State, Mr. Letcher," said Buchanan, looking at Clay. 
 
 But Clay was not going to nibble at bait with the hook 
 so plainly in sight. 
 
JOHN MORLAND 181 
 
 "I think there is no timber in the room fit for a cabinet 
 officer unless it is Mr. Buchanan himself," he said playfully, 
 and then he added quickly, determined to give Buchanan 
 chance to say nothing further: 
 
 "Stay to dinner with us, Mr. Buchanan. My landlady 
 has promised me roast shoat for dinner." 
 
 Buchanan shuddered politely. 
 
 "Thank you, some other day. I 'm a Jew where fresh 
 pork is concerned. But I dropped in, Mr. Clay, to invite 
 you to a little dinner I am giving Wednesday to Lafayette 
 and his son. The Marquis' time is so taken, with every- 
 body feasting him, I have to make my arrangements nearly 
 a week ahead." 
 
 The invitation was an afterthought, to explain his visit. 
 He was going to give a dinner to Lafayette, but he had not 
 intended, until this moment, to include Clay among the 
 guests. Of course his invitation was accepted as promptly 
 as such an invitation was bound to be, and Buchanan took 
 his leave feeling that he had dropped his seed — it must be 
 left to germinate. 
 
 As the door closed behind him Clay turned and looked 
 at Letcher. 
 
 "Was he a direct emissary from headquarters, do you 
 reckon?" he asked. 
 
 "Looks like it," returned Letcher. "But I hardly 
 think Jackson himself had anything to do with it — he 's 
 too simple and direct in his methods, and I believe too sen- 
 sitively alive to a suspicion of bribery. It 's probably 
 Lewis or Morland." 
 
 Clay smiled a little bitterly. 
 
 "I am very popular just now with Jacksonites and 
 Adamsites and Crawfordites. I am sometimes touched 
 
182 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 gently on the shoulder by a friend of General Jackson who 
 will thus address me : ' My dear sir, all our dependence is 
 upon you; don't disappoint us. You know you were our 
 choice next to the hero, and how much we want a Western 
 President.' The next moment a friend of Mr. Crawford 
 will accost me: 'The hopes of the Republican Party are 
 concentrated on you; for God's sake preserve it! If you 
 had been returned instead of Mr. Crawford, every man of 
 us would have supported you to the last hour. We con- 
 sider him and you as the only genuine Republican candi- 
 dates.' Then comes a friend of Mr. Adams, with tears in 
 his eyes: 'Sir, Mr. Adams has always had the greatest 
 respect for you and admiration of your talents. Most 
 undoubtedly you are the second choice of New England, 
 and I pray you to consider seriously whether the public 
 good and your own future interests do not point most 
 distinctly to the choice you ought to make.' How can one 
 withstand all this disinterested homage and kindness ? " 
 
 Letcher smiled sympathetically, but Clay gave him no 
 time to do more. With a quick change from biting sar- 
 casm to flaming indignation he exclaimed hotly: 
 
 "The knaves cannot comprehend how a man can be 
 honest! They cannot conceive that I should have solemnly 
 interrogated my conscience and asked it to tell me seriously 
 what I ought to do! The object now is on the part of Mr. 
 Crawford and General Jackson to cajole me or to drive 
 me from the course which my deliberate judgment points 
 out. They all have yet to learn my character if they sup- 
 pose it possible to make me swerye from my duty by any 
 species of bribery or intimidation!" 
 
 Clay was right in his estimate of his own character. 
 His political integrity was absolutely unassailable. He 
 
JOHN MORLAND 183 
 
 would stoop to no artifice and accept no bribe to win place 
 or power. Yet, so involved and convoluted are the mental 
 processes of even as honest and straightforward a man as 
 Clay believed himself to be, that he came up to the great 
 day of the election serenely unconscious that the fact of 
 Adams being an Eastern man had anything to do with the 
 decision he had arrived at. He felt himself on an exalted 
 moral plane far above the reach of all baser motives. He 
 was not to be moved by the appeal that Jackson was vir- 
 tually the choice of the people and the darling of the West, 
 his own section; if he was ignoring the demands of his 
 constituents he but felt himself the more virtuous in 
 refusing to yield his convictions to the arguments of 
 expediency. 
 
 Yet, in spite of his lofty ethical claims. Clay would not 
 have been human, still less would he have been Clay, if 
 he had not realized that this was his hour. He held in his 
 grasp the destinies of the two men who had been for years 
 his most formidable rivals; the one snatching from him 
 the place of power he had so dearly coveted, the other 
 sharing with him and eclipsing him in the idolatry of the 
 people. This last he could not forgive. He might for- 
 give Adams that he had taken from him the portfolio of 
 State, the stepping-stone to the Presidency, but he could 
 not forgive Jackson that in the campaign just ended the 
 roar of the guns of New Orleans had drowned his own roll- 
 ing periods, and the flash of the hero's sword had dazzled 
 the eyes of the people, for the time obscuring in its 
 coruscations the figure of the brilliant orator, the well- 
 loved and dashing "Harry of the Slashes." 
 
 He would not have been Harry Clay, therefore, no, nor 
 any other mere man, if he had not entered the Hall of 
 
184 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 Representatives on the morning of the ninth of February 
 secretly elate with a sense of coming triumph. No one 
 knew so well as he how completely he held the Representa- 
 tives in his sway. Others were fearful or doubtful of the 
 result, he was sure of it. 
 
 The old Hall of Representatives was thronged to suf- 
 focation on that morning. From the entrance-arch over 
 which the classic figure of History in the Car of Time 
 wrote down the legislative doings of the House, to the great 
 proscenium arch with its crimson draperies behind the 
 Speaker's chair, every available spot permitted to visitors 
 was occupied by members of the cabinet, judges, ambas- 
 sadors, governors of states, and other privileged persons; 
 and the balcony was crowded with the friends of the three 
 candidates. 
 
 That was a wonderful old hall! Relegated now to be 
 the dreary domicile of cold figures in marble, in those days 
 it was pulsating with life and action. The pillared walls 
 and beautiful dome must still be reverberating with the 
 echo of those magnetic voices that for many years kept the 
 eyes and the ears of the civilized nations of the earth turned 
 to the Hall of Representatives in Washington: Fair- 
 haired, boyish-looking Randolph denouncing all measures 
 and all men with shrill screams of invective; Clay, in the 
 Speaker's chair, swaying men's minds at his will with his 
 wonderful voice; Calhoun and Webster, from their desks, 
 stirring the English-speaking world to its foundations, the 
 one by the keenness of his logic, the other by the matchless 
 fire of his oratory. 
 
 They were all there that sunshiny February morning, 
 each in his place, and up in the crowded balcony sat Kitty 
 and her mother watching them eagerly and waiting breath- 
 
JOHN MORLAND 185 
 
 lessly, as the whole House was waiting, for the entrance of 
 the Senators from the other end of the Capitol. 
 
 Their breathlessness was largely from anxiety as to 
 whether Jackson would be among them. Earlier in the 
 morning, in IVIrs. McCabe's parlour, Mrs. McCabe and 
 Morland had tried to dissuade him from going to the 
 Capitol at all. They were hopeful of his election, but 
 should he be defeated they feared the effect upon him, and 
 shrank from the public exhibition of his disappointment 
 and rage which they thought he was likely to make. 
 But they did not know the staxmch old soldier. He was 
 bearing himself grandly in those days; they need not have 
 feared for him — except to fear the internal wound the 
 sensitive heart of the old hero might have to sustain; for 
 there was something so simple and childlike in Jackson 
 that those who loved him were always eager to spare him 
 every hurt, as they might have been eager to spare a child. 
 
 There was a stir in the vast assembly that betokened the 
 approach of the Senatorial procession. Heralded by the 
 Sergeant-at-Arms, it entered the House, and to the accom- 
 paniment of a deferential murmur of half-suppressed 
 admiration the dignified body of forty-eight stately and 
 imposing men, the Vice-President at their head, marched 
 down the aisle to the seats reserved for them directly in 
 front of the Speaker's rostrum. 
 
 Kitty seized her mother's hand nervously. Yes, there 
 he was, leaning on Morland's arm, his crown of white hair 
 towering above the heads of those about him, and drawing 
 all eyes toward him. He was the only one of the three 
 candidates present; Adams had too strong a sense of his 
 own personal dignity and was too self-conscious to trust 
 himself, and Crawford was too feeble. 
 
186 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 Clay invited the president of the Senate to a seat beside 
 him on the rostrum, and then, amid an impressive silence, 
 the packet from the College of Electors was opened. Of 
 course the results had long been known, but the formality 
 was a necessary one. Calhoun who, as Secretary of War, 
 was on the floor of the House among the privileged visitors, 
 received the congratulatory smiles of his friends on his 
 almost unanimous election to the Vice-Presidency with as 
 stately decorum as if he had not received them many times 
 before. Then, as the announcement was made that there 
 had been no election for President, and the duty of a deci- 
 sion must fall upon the House, the Senate, like the King of 
 France, rose from their seats and " marched back again " 
 to their own end of the Capitol. But they did not remain 
 in the Senate chamber. With little of the dignity of their 
 first entrance most of them hurried back and mingled with 
 the throng on the floor to be present at the real event. 
 Only Jackson did not retiu-n; he went home to Rachel 
 to await the result quietly with her. 
 
 Morland did not go on the floor; he had spied Kitty 
 and Mrs. McCabe in the balcony, and he was in that 
 feverish state of expectancy that must have some sympa- 
 thetic soul to share his excitement with him. Kitty was 
 sufficiently sympathetic; not Morland himself could be 
 feeling more intensely the strain of this waiting for a deci- 
 sion, and certainly Morland himself was filled with no such 
 eager assurance of success as buoyed Kitty up to a state 
 of wild excitement. 
 
 She was no longer the Madonna-like Kitty of Morland's 
 first return to Washington; she was the brilliant, sparkling, 
 irrepressible Kitty of old. Her return to health had 
 brought back the colour and the glow, and certain lapses 
 
JOHN MORLAND 187 
 
 of Sutherland into his old weaknesses — now that Kitty's 
 illness no longer made demands on his solicitous devotion, 
 and the new baby began to be an old story — had roused in 
 Kitty a spirit of audacity to resist the encroachments of 
 anxiety, and snatch at least a superficial enjoyment for her- 
 self out of the wreck of her happiness. This had given a 
 little of hardness to expression and manner that did not 
 detract from her brilliancy, and added a diamond-like 
 glitter and sparkle to her gaiety. Morland did not like 
 the change in her, but he thought he understood its cause, 
 and he was sorry for her and more dazzled then ever; 
 which is saying much, for Kitty had always bewitched him. 
 
 "Sit down, sir," she said imperiously before he 
 scarcely had time to exchange a bow and a smile with her 
 mother, and motioning with a white ungloved hand to a 
 seat on the step in the aisle at her side. "I want you to 
 tell me who everybody is, and explain everything I don't 
 understand." 
 
 " But I thought you understood everything, you and your 
 mother," said Morland, as he took his seat on the step 
 at Kitty's bidding. "And I am sure you know everybody 
 — that 's worth knowing, at least." 
 
 "Oh, the celebrities, yes," began Kitty, but her mother 
 began at the same moment: 
 
 "Kitty and I have n't been to the Capitol for nearly a 
 year — not since the day Randolph sent us home." 
 
 Morland looked a little mystified and Kitty laughed. 
 
 "You should have seen mother's face when Randolph 
 turned to the galleries with his arm outstretched, and in 
 that high, clear musical voice of his called out: 'What are 
 all these women doing here ? They should be at home 
 attending to their knitting and darning!' I laugh yet 
 
188 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 when I think of it. I was for braving it out, but mother 
 was the first to flee, and I perforce had to follow." 
 
 "Oh," exclaimed Morland with enlightened visage, 
 " were you here that day ? I heard of it, of course. Some- 
 times, do you know, I think Randolph 's mad." 
 
 "Little whippersnapper!" said Kitty disdainfully. 
 "He 's not worth minding, I tell mother, but I 've never 
 succeeded in getting her back here since, until to-day." 
 
 " I could n't live through a second mortification like that 
 one," said Mrs. McCabe, whimsically, "but if I ever do 
 venture here again on one of the regular days I shall 
 certainly bring my knitting with me and perhaps that will 
 render me safe from Randolph's tongue." 
 
 "Such an interminable roll-call!" exclaimed Kitty, 
 impatiently. " It takes men forever to fix things, does n't 
 it?" 
 
 "We 're not so quick as the ladies," assented Morland, 
 "but there 's some excuse for their tediousness this time. 
 You know when each state is called the whole delegation 
 has to get itself seated together, and men are such clumsy 
 animals there 's bound to be confusion and delay." 
 
 " Only down to New York," Kitty sighed again; " they '11 
 never get to Virginia!" 
 
 And then Morland saw a slight but very perceptible 
 change come over Kitty. She seemed for a moment to 
 stiffen and harden, and then, as if by an effort of will, her 
 face wreathed itself in smiles that came as near being lan- 
 guishing as anything Morland had ever seen on Kitty's 
 face. He was almost irresistibly impelled to follow the 
 direction of her glance, but he would not. He had a very 
 keen intuition as to the cause of this effect, and he was 
 hardly surprised, though he owned to an intensely disagree- 
 
JOHN MORLAND 189 
 
 able shock, when Montclair came up, debonair and 
 smiling, with extended hand, into which Kitty put hers 
 for a moment. He was full of gossip about the candidates 
 which he was eager to dispense, and Kitty drew him on 
 with smiles and glances that made Morland boil inwardly. 
 He looked at Mrs. McCabe. She had barely returned 
 Montclair's greeting, and now she sat with troubled eyes 
 gazing absently down on the stirring crowds below. Mor- 
 land's nod had also been of the curtest, and he sat stiffly 
 erect in his place, making it impossible for Montclair to 
 get very near Kitty, and necessitating that all their conver- 
 sation should be carried on directly over his head. He 
 was very uncomfortable himself, but he would not move a 
 whit to make it any the more comfortable for them, and 
 in common decency Montclair was compelled to cut his 
 stay short. There was a moment's silence after he had 
 turned away, and then Morland", white with rage, 
 blurted out: 
 
 "Kitty what do yoxi mean by carrying on a flirtation 
 with that fellow!" 
 
 It was exactly what Kitty had been doing, but the word 
 roused her wrath also. 
 
 " I know of no right you have. Major Morland, to ques- 
 tion my actions," she said icily. 
 
 Morland was stunned by her manner. He had been in 
 the habit of regarding this girl of less than twenty as a 
 child, and heretofore she had taken every reproof of his 
 with a childlike sweetness. Had he overstepped the 
 bounds? Very likely; he was always a blunderer. 
 Kitty had given him to understand that she was a 
 child no longer, and answerable only to her husband, 
 and he would make the necessary apologies. 
 
190 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 "Forgive me, Mrs. Sutherland," he said quietly. "I 
 spoke thoughtlessly, under a very strong impulse to which 
 I had no right to yield." 
 
 His " Mrs. Sutherland " touched Kitty. She had never 
 heard him use it more than once or twice, and she had 
 divined that he had a strong repugnance to using it. 
 Kitty's wrath was always short-lived. 
 
 "Oh, I was horrid, too," she said with her sweetest and 
 most childlike smile. " But only don't scold and I '11 
 try to be good." 
 
 Morland hoped the words meant more than he feared 
 they did; but Kitty in her present mood was irresistible, 
 and when at length they turned to watch the movements 
 of the members below they found Virginia had already 
 been called and Randolph and Webster, as tellers, were 
 getting ready to collect the ballots, one for each state, 
 deposited in boxes on the desks in front of each delegation. 
 
 No one was prepared for what followed. Jackson's 
 friends had counted on receiving the vote of the Crawford 
 states on the second ballot, and Crawford's friends had 
 counted on repeated ballots with no majority for either of 
 the leading candidates; and so, by the tactics of wearying 
 out the others, securing at last the vote for their own 
 candidate. 
 
 But neither of these things happened. Webster and 
 Randolph gathered up the boxes and read slowly and dis- 
 tinctly the ballot in each. It was an easy matter for every 
 one in the breathless throng to keep tally, and Mrs. 
 McCabe and Kitty and Morland were white with disap- 
 pointment even before Webster's rolling tones anhounced 
 the result: 
 
 "Adams thirteen, Jackson seven, Crawford four. 
 
JOHN MORLAND 191 
 
 John Quincy Adams is elected President of these United 
 States!" 
 
 For a moment the House was dumb with astonishment 
 at such a quick result, and then a roar of applause burst 
 from Adams's friends in the gallery, mingled with hisses 
 and groans from the friends of Crawford and Jackson. 
 
 Clay rose to restore order, and there was a gleam of 
 triumph in his eye and a thrill of elation in his voice that 
 he could not wholly suppress, as his command rang out: 
 
 "Sergeant-at-Arms, clear the galleries I" 
 
 It was hb hour. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 kitty's defiance 
 
 PERHAPS it was fortunate for all concerned that 
 Monroe was holding a levee on the evening of 
 the election; it gave the friends of Adams an opportunity 
 of congratulating him, and it gave Jackson a chance 
 to prove the metal he was made of. No one could 
 ever doubt, after seeing him at the White House that 
 evening, that he was a soldier to his finger-tips, and knew 
 how to take defeat better than some men know how to 
 take victory. 
 
 " Come,Kitty," he said, entering Mrs. McCabe's parloiu' 
 as the men in the adjoining dining-room were rising from 
 the table with even more than the usual confusion of 
 tongues, since the topic of the morning's election was a 
 prolific one, "come, put on your prettiest frock and go 
 with me to the President's levee. Rachel's not well enough 
 to go, and I could not stay away for very shame. Come, 
 you will keep me in coimtenance." 
 
 It was more for Kitty than for himself he was making 
 this plea. Morland had told him on their way up from 
 Gadsby's, where they had been dining together, that 
 Sutherland had taken the excuse Jackson's defeat had 
 given him to indulge in a heavier drinking-bout than 
 usual, he feared; and as a result Kitty was by turns in a 
 state of high nervous excitement and deep depression. 
 Jackson thought, and Morland agreed with him, that to 
 
 192 
 
THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 193 
 
 get her out among people, away from her thoughts, would 
 be the best possible medicine for such a malady. 
 
 It was on the tip of Kitty's tongue to answer him: 
 "Thank you, but I am tired and would rather stay at 
 home," for she had easily discerned that it was sympathy 
 for her that had brought forth his invitation, and above all 
 things Kitty resented sympathy. She resented it the more 
 because she believed Morland had prompted the General, 
 and, for some reason that she did not explain to herself, 
 she was beginning to resent sympathy from him a little 
 more keenly than she resented it from any one else. 
 
 But she had been looking forward with dread to this 
 long evening spent alone with her mother, to whom she 
 could not talk on the one subject that absorbed her 
 thoughts, and with whom, for pride's sake, she must make 
 light conversation while waiting, and listening for, and 
 fearing the return of her husband. Kitty hated pain and 
 care and sorrow of all kinds, and she could not resist 
 snatching at this diversion offered which would, for the 
 time at least, make her forget all that she so hated to 
 remember. But she must give Morland his punishment; 
 he had no right to be interesting himself in her welfare 
 as she suspected him of doing, so she said in her gentlest 
 and sweetest fashion, and suppressing every twinkle of 
 mischief in her dancing eyes: 
 
 "Thank you. General Jackson, I would like to go with 
 you very much; but I do not like leaving mother alone — 
 do you think Major Morland would mind staying with 
 her?" 
 
 If Kitty had expected to see Morland crestfallen she 
 was disappointed. He understood the spirit of her 
 request, and he had counted on the pleasure he always 
 
194 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 felt in being near her, for he had supposed, naturally, 
 that they would all go together to the White House, but 
 he was not the man to flinch from the disagreeable. 
 
 "Of course not," he answered with no appreciable 
 hesitation, " nothing could delight me more than to spend 
 a quiet evening with Mrs. McCabe, if she will not go with 
 us to the levee." 
 
 Mrs. McCabe, hearing her name spoken, looked up 
 from Baby Janet, her namesake, over whom she had been 
 hanging entranced, and for the first time paid some 
 attention to the elders, who counted for little to this adoring 
 young grandmother when baby was around. 
 
 " AVhat are you saying about me ? " she asked. 
 
 "We are inviting you to go to President Monroe's levee 
 with us," Morland replied quickly. 
 
 "Thank you, no," said Mrs. McCabe, "I 'm tired of 
 levees. But if I were not, I would not go to this one and 
 help swell Mr. Adams's triumph." 
 
 "It 's not to swell Adanjs's triumph, it 's to help me face 
 the music," urged Jackson. 
 
 "Yes, we want a full turnout of the General's sup- 
 porters," Morland added, "we don't want the Adams 
 people to think we are only fair-weather friends." 
 
 But no arguments were of any avail with Mrs. McCabe. 
 She did not say : " Levees are an old and tiresome story 
 and baby is a new and thrilling one," but that is what she 
 meant. She was obdurate, also, on the point of Morland 
 staying with her. He would be terribly in baby's way, she 
 said to herself, but to them she reiterated her one argu- 
 ment: he must not desert the General. 
 
 Owing partly to the length of their controversy, and 
 partly to a frolic they all got into with the baby, and 
 
JOHN MORLAND 195 
 
 partly to the time it took Kitty to make a more than usu- 
 ally elaborate toilet, the party of three was late in making 
 its bow to President and Mrs. Monroe in the Blue Room. 
 Morland left Kitty and the General the moment these for- 
 malities were over, ostensibly to hunt up Major Lewis; 
 really to show Kitty that he had sufEcient independence 
 not to hang on to her apron strings when she did not 
 want him. 
 
 They had found the Blue Room comparatively deserted, 
 but the great East Room was thronged, and the more 
 crowded because they had cleared a space through the 
 centre for dancing. Threading his way through the com- 
 pact mass of onlookers, Morland suddenly came upon 
 Clay, who had stopped for a moment to watch the dancers. 
 Heretofore neither of the two men had allowed any political 
 dififerences to interfere with the really warm regard they en- 
 tertained for one another, but this last action of Clay's was 
 almost too great a strain on Morland's affection. He was 
 about to pass him with a cool nod when Clay stopped him. 
 
 "Wait a minute, Morland," he said with a gleam of 
 humour in his eyes. "Wait and see what will happen." 
 
 Morland followed the indication of Clay's eyes and saw 
 that Jackson, with Kitty on his arm, was slowly approach- 
 ing Adams, also with a lady on his arm. Neither was 
 aware of the other's proximity, but the bystanders were 
 rapidly becoming aware of it and drew back, allowing a 
 clear space for the inevitable meeting. Into that open 
 space the two men stepped for a moment and, dazed by the 
 unexpected encounter, they stopped involuntarily. Jack- 
 son was the first to recover himself. He stepped forward 
 with the grace of a courtier, and extending his left hand 
 said cordially: 
 
196 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 " How do you do, Mr. Adams ? I give you my left hand, 
 for the right, as you see, is devoted to the fair. I hope you 
 are well, sir." 
 
 Mr. Adams returned the General's hearty grasp with a 
 slack one, and said with chilling coldness: 
 
 "Very well, sir. I hope General Jackson is well?" 
 
 The two men passed on, and Clay turned to Morland 
 with a soft "Whew!" 
 
 "Well?" interrogated Morland. 
 
 "Any one would think it was Jackson, the pioneer 
 planter, the Indian fighter, who was used to the ways of 
 courts and diplomacy," said Clay ruefully, "and not 
 Adams the old courtier and diplomat. He was as genial 
 and gracious as Adams was stiff and cold; which is the 
 more remarkable when you consider that he is the defeated 
 one and Adams the victorious." 
 
 "I 'm glad to see that you have the grace to be 
 embarrassed for your man," said Morland, laughing, but 
 he added earnestly: "As for my candidate, Mr. Clay, I 
 believe General Jackson could never be placed in any 
 company or in any circumstances where his friends would 
 feel anything but a generous glow of pride in him!" 
 
 Clay was silent a moment and Morland was about to 
 pass on, but Clay stopped him. Hesitating, and with a 
 shyness very unusual to him, but with a grace no man could 
 resist, he said: 
 
 "You are not going to let this make any difference in 
 our friendship, John?" 
 
 Morland hesitated too, but it was only for a moment, 
 then he slowly extended his hand with a kind of humorous 
 vexation : 
 
 "There 's no resisting you, Harry, but you did play us a 
 
JOHN MORLAND 197 
 
 rascally trick, and I don't see why. I should not have 
 supposed that you loved Adams any better than you did 
 Jackson." 
 
 " Not loved him more, but feared him less," returned 
 Clay, holding Morland's hand in his hearty grasp. "And 
 you ought to consider that what it really is — a compli- 
 ment to the old chieftain." 
 
 It was an hour later that Morland had an encounter 
 that he liked less than this one with Clay. He had seen 
 Kitty whirling in the dance with Montclair, and it had dis- 
 pleased him greatly. That she should dance with him was 
 bad enough, but Montclair's marked air of devotion and 
 Kitty's acceptance of it made it still more displeasing to 
 Morland. A little later he had seen her again — this time 
 with the English Ambassador. But though the Ambassa- 
 dor was almost as markedly devoted as Montclair, Morland 
 was not so annoyed with him. He understood his air of 
 devotion to be mere gallantry, and he said to himself a 
 little grimly: 
 
 "I wonder why no man can come near Kitty without 
 making love to her ?" 
 
 But Kitty was no longer dancing, and General Jackson 
 had signified to Morland that if Kitty was ready to go 
 home he was — he felt that he had done his duty and that 
 it was well done. But she had disappeared. The throng 
 was thinning a little, and through the Blue Room, the Red 
 Room, and the great East Room Morland wandered, but 
 could catch no glimpse of her. 
 
 Near the conservatories he came upon Miss Dayton 
 rather restlessly hovering about an open door leading 
 into them, with the air of waiting for some one. Now, 
 Morland liked Miss Dayton no better than did General 
 
198 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 Jackson, and he would have passed her with a slight bow, 
 as was his custom, but she stopped him. 
 
 "Are you looking for Mrs. Sutherland, Major Mor- 
 land?" she inquired with an effort at being smilingly 
 arch. 
 
 Morland flushed slightly but answered at once : 
 
 "Yes, Miss Dayton, have you seen her? General 
 Jackson has sent me to hunt her up; he is ready to go 
 home." 
 
 "You will find her in there, I think," said Miss Dayton, 
 indicating the conservatory. And, still with an attempt 
 at archness, she added : 
 
 "When you can't find a beautiful woman. Major 
 Morland, always look for her in a conservatory with some 
 foolish man." 
 
 Morland could not, or did not try to, suppress a little 
 stare of astonishment in his honest blue eyes at Miss 
 Dayton's remarkable speech. She reddened under their 
 gaze and dropped her own for a moment, but she lifted them 
 again quickly and returned his look steadily with a glare of 
 mingled hatred and scorn. 
 
 There was nothing for him to do but to pass on; and 
 since it was really necessary to find Kitty he must follow 
 Miss Dayton's directions, though it was extremely distaste- 
 ful to him to seem to be keeping watch on Kitty, and trying 
 to break up any quiet little t^te-a-t^te of hers with any 
 man, even with Montclair, who he was quite certain was 
 the man in this case since Miss Dayton was on guard at 
 the door. 
 
 He came upon them where he might have expected to 
 find them — in the most secluded nook in the conservatory, 
 screened in by tall palms and flowering oleanders and 
 
JOHN MORLAND 199 
 
 camellias. He had not tried to come upon them quietly, 
 though, from a superfine feeling of delicacy, neither had 
 he made any too obviously noisy approach; but he saw 
 to his intense annoyance that they had been too much 
 absorbed in each other to notice the rustle of the palms as 
 he brushed by them, or his footfall, slightly heavier than 
 usual, on the carpeted conservatory aisle. Montclair was 
 bending tenderly over Kitty, and at the moment of Mor- 
 land's approach had seized her hand, which she rather 
 coyly tried to draw away. Kitty's eyes were down, and 
 Montclair's eyes were on Kitty; neither of them saw Mor- 
 land, and it became necessary to announce his presence by 
 speaking: 
 
 "Mrs. Sutherland," he said, "General Jackson has 
 sent me to inquire if you are ready to go home." 
 
 At the first sound of his voice Montclair had sprung 
 guiltily away from Kitty's side, and Kitty had lifted her 
 eyes swiftly to Morland's with the look of a frightened deer 
 in them, while the conscious crimson flooded her face and 
 bare white shoulders. Her first startled glance had been 
 one of intense shame, but it changed in a moment to 
 defiance, and the crimson wave subsided as it had risen. 
 
 "I am ready," she said icily to Morland, and turned with 
 extreme graciousness to say good-night to Montclair, 
 who could not so easily recover from his mortification and 
 was still overwhelmed with confusion. 
 
 She turned back to Morland with her head high in air 
 and refused his proffered arm. 
 
 "Spy!" she said between her set teeth as she swept by 
 him, and Morland had the discomfort of following in her 
 wake with the guilty air of a whipped spaniel. He 
 was painfully conscious, also, as he passed Miss Dayton, 
 
200 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 still lying in wait at the conservatory door, that a light sneer 
 of fine scorn curled her delicately chiselled lips. 
 
 In the carriage on the way home Kitty was gay and the 
 General was jovial. To Morland's sharpened perceptions 
 Kitty's gaiety sounded a little strained, her voice pitched 
 higher and her manner more nervously excited than was 
 usual with her. But the General did not notice it, and 
 there was nothing strained about his jollity. He was 
 in high good humour with himself, for he had acquitted 
 himself creditably in a difficult situation, and he had been 
 more sought after and courted by admiring throngs of men 
 and women during the evening than the victorious Adams 
 himself. 
 
 " Drop me at Gadsby's," he had said to Morland. " You 
 can see Kitty safely home, and I 've already been too long 
 away from Rachel. She '11 be waiting up for me to hear 
 how I behaved this evening." 
 
 "Tell her from me," said Morland, earnestly, " that you 
 did us all honour and your friends were never so proud 
 of you." 
 
 " And tell her for me," said Kitty gaily, " that I 'm com- 
 ing around to-morrow to tell her that next time she must 
 come along to look after you. Every woman in the room 
 was crazy about you ; you were the belle of the evening." 
 
 Jackson liked such patent flattery from a pretty woman, 
 and he and Kitty fell into a half-playful, half-affectionate 
 chatter that required no assistance from Morland; for 
 which he was grateful, since it left him undisturbed to 
 solve a problem that had been presenting itself to him 
 pertinaciously ever since his coming upon Kitty in the 
 conservatory. 
 
 For the first three minutes after the General had left them 
 
JOHN MORLAND 201 
 
 at Gadsby's the silence was unbroken between Kitty and 
 Morland. But with every passing moment it grew more 
 difficult to break, and Morland knew that if he was to say 
 to Kitty the words he had been conning over to himself 
 under cover of the General's and Kitty's lively chatter, he 
 must say them at once, for the distance from Gadsby's 
 to McCabe's was short. 
 
 "Kitty," he began, vainly striving to catch a glimpse 
 of her face in the dark corner of the carriage to which she 
 had withdrawn. He had been sitting with his back to 
 the horses while the General had been in the carriage, and 
 he had not had the temerity to change his seat after his 
 departure, so that now he leaned slightly forward in his 
 effort to peer into Kitty's dark corner. 
 
 "Mrs. Sutherland, if you please, hereafter," Kitty 
 interrupted him icily. 
 
 Morland straightened himself up, waited a moment 
 for the keenness of her shaft to have lost its first sharp 
 sting, and then began again. 
 
 "Very well," he said quietly, "Mrs. Sutherland, if you 
 prefer. But I still hope that you will believe that what 
 I have to say is prompted by the sincerest affection and 
 consideration for you and your husband." 
 
 He hesitated as if waiting for Kitty to reply, but she 
 made no response and he went on : 
 
 "I have reason to very greatly distrust Mr. Montclair, 
 and I believe there can no good come of your having even 
 the most innocent intercourse with him." 
 
 There was a slight rustle in Kitty's corner as if she were 
 stirring uneasily, perhaps getting ready for a spring, 
 was Morland's feeling, and he hurried on : 
 
 "I believe him to be as much of a villain, or more of 
 
202 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 one, than we both discovered him to be four years ago. 
 He could not possibly now have any intentions toward you 
 that are honourable, yet I believe that he still cherishes 
 intentions of some sort." 
 
 The rustle grew more pronounced and Morland hur- 
 ried still more: 
 
 "Moreover, I distrust, almost as greatly, that young 
 lady friend of his who was watching for you both at the 
 door of the conservatory. I dread her tongue; the mis- 
 chief it can do cannot be overestimated." 
 
 Now was Kitty to be restrained no longer. She burst 
 forth in a perfect torrent of rage like some mad animal. 
 
 "How dare you call me to account, sir! This is the 
 second time you have been so presuming and it must be 
 the last. Who are you to set yourself up as judge of my 
 actions or of Mr. Montclair's ? Why did you not let me 
 marry him years ago? I would not, at least, now be 
 dragged down to the mire by a drunkard. You have 
 much sympathy for my husband, because you are afraid 
 I may show too great interest in some other man; you 
 have none for me when I would try to amuse myself and 
 forget, for a time, the horror and dread in which I daily 
 live. You need never speak to me in this way again, for 
 I assure you your words have absolutely no effect upon me. 
 I shall go my own way and do as I will. My husband goes 
 his, and seeks his low pleasures in ways that he knows are 
 utterly abhorrent to me, yet that knowledge does not 
 restrain him in the least. I want to announce to you 
 now, once and for all, that I shall seek mine as I please. 
 If every man in Washington chooses to make love to me 
 I shall get all the pleasure out of it I can, and all the 
 forgetfulness. And understand, please, that I will be 
 
JOHN MORLAND 203 
 
 restrained neither by fear of your spying upon me nor of 
 Miss Dayton's tongue!" 
 
 It had been impossible to interrupt her tirade so far, but 
 here she stopped, either to get breath or because she had 
 finished. Morland seized his chance for the one word 
 he must say. 
 
 "Mrs. Sutherland," he said quickly, "no one can 
 feel more intense sympathy than I feel for you; but what- 
 ever you do, let Montclair alone! For your mother's 
 sake, for your baby's sake, and for the sake of your husband 
 whom, in spite of his faults, I believe you still love." 
 
 He mentally bowed his head to the second and stormier 
 tirade that he expected from Kitty. To his amazement 
 her response was a flood of tears mingled with half sup- 
 pressed sobs and moans. He would have liked to take her 
 haind and assure her, by a silent pressure, of his sympathy, 
 but the memory of Montclair's holding it with far other 
 intention deterred him ; and all he could do was to murmur 
 over and over under his breath: 
 
 "Kitty! Kitty!" 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE FLOWING RIVER 
 
 THERE was great news awaiting Kitty when she 
 stepped into the parallelogram of light before the 
 open door at McCabe's with the tears still trembling on 
 her curly lashes. 
 
 It was surprise enough to find her husband standing at 
 the carriage door ready to help her out. She had not 
 expected him home so early, nor had she looked for him in 
 the partially sober state in which he now presented himself. 
 He was sober enough to discover the trace of tears, and not 
 quite sober enough to try to veil the angry and suspicious 
 glance he darted at Morland. 
 
 But this surprise was as nothing to the one that followed. 
 With formal courtesy and a step that he vainly tried to 
 keep perfectly steady, Sutherland conducted his wife 
 through the room full of men to her mother's parlour. 
 There Kitty learned the tidings that had sobered her hus- 
 band and was to make her, for the time at least, forgive 
 him all the heartaches he had caused her. The Argus 
 was ordered to the Mediterranean on a three years' cruise 
 and Sutherland must join his ship within the month. 
 Kitty was instantly in an agony of repentance. She vowed 
 to herself she would never look at Montclair again and 
 that, come what would, she would be patient and forgiving 
 with her husband. 
 
 It was comparatively little forgiveness that he needed 
 204 
 
THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 205 
 
 in the days that followed. He had known that sailing 
 orders might be expected at any time, but he had not 
 realized the wrench it would be to tear himself away from 
 Kitty and his baby. He was a fond father when he was 
 sober, and a proud one, and he loved Kitty as genuinely 
 and as ardently as it was in him to love. It was not the 
 perfect love that casteth out fear, for at the slightest pro- 
 vocation he was capable of being insanely Jealous; but it 
 was an intense passion mingled with much pride in her 
 beauty and grace. He was showing all the devotion of his 
 early marriage in these last days, and Kitty was supremely 
 happy. 
 
 The mornings were filled with work for both of them. 
 Sutherland was full of business at the Navy Yard and at 
 the navy department in the city, for there is much to be 
 done by the lieutenant of a ship in getting ready for a three 
 years' cruise ; and Kitty's mornings were filled with delight- 
 ful tasks all pertaining to caring for baby with renewed 
 tenderness, or to fitting out her husband with every con- 
 ceivable comfort for this long absence. Their afternoons 
 were given to each other in riding or driving, and their 
 evenings to society; for Kitty was proud of her husband 
 again and eager to show him in the places from which he 
 had been absent for months. 
 
 All this programme required sobriety on Sutherland's 
 part, and in the main he was succeeding in keeping to it. 
 As for Kitty, if she met Montclair at dinners or evening 
 parties she hardly noticed him; certainly no more than 
 she did any other man she met, who must always worship 
 a little at Kitty's shrine — a worship she received now with 
 gay and lovely indifference, too happy to be flattered by 
 it. Montclair was not the man to take such treatment 
 
206 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 patiently — his vanity was too deeply wounded by it — 
 but he knew, as did all Washington, that Kitty's husband 
 was ordered off, and he bided his time. 
 
 The days flew by with incredible swiftness to Kitty, and 
 before she could realize it Inauguration Day, less than 
 four weeks from the election, was at hand. It was also 
 to be Sutherland's last day at home. He had stayed over 
 for the inauguration, when he should have been well on 
 his way to Hampton Roads, simply because he could 
 neither resist Kitty's entreaties nor his own desire to see 
 her in evening dress once more, surrounded by admiring 
 throngs. But, as it proved, perhaps it was a pity that he 
 had not adhered more strictly to the line of duty. 
 
 They were among the earliest arrivals at the White 
 House at the inauguration reception in the evening, and 
 all went well for awhile. Kitty had a new frock for the 
 occasion — since she was to have her husband to admire 
 her in it — and never had she looked more radiantly 
 lovely. Jackson was there, almost the first to congratulate 
 the new President heartily, and treating Kitty, as he always 
 did, like a dear daughter. And Morland was there with 
 such admiration in his eyes for Kitty, whenever they fell 
 upon her, that it is a wonder her husband did not 
 resent it. , 
 
 But Sutherland had long since forgotten any little sus- 
 picions of Morland he may have entertained on the night 
 when he brought Kitty home in his carriage in tears. 
 Morland had seen but little of Kitty since that evening, 
 for her husband had engrossed her and Morland was 
 genuinely happy in Kitty's happiness, but he had seen 
 much of her husband. He was sticking to his resolve to 
 make a friend of him, and since Sutherland felt himself to 
 
JOHN MORLAND 207 
 
 be doing right he did not shun Morland, as he was in the 
 habit of doing when his conscience troubled him, but 
 sought his room frequently for a quiet chat over a cigar. 
 In these talks, which Morland often succeeded in directing 
 into intimate and serious channels, the rather incongruous 
 friendship between the two was gradually welded to a 
 strength and firmness no light strain could break. 
 
 It was owing to that skilful welding on Moreland's part 
 that late in the evening of the inauguration Sutherland 
 sought him with a troubled air and asked him to come out 
 on the terrace with him for a few minutes' talk. 
 
 "What is it?" asked Morland, as the two men stood 
 looking down on the Potomac gleaming white in the 
 moonlight. 
 
 "Everything 's wrong!" answered Sutherland, so gloom- 
 ily that Morland could hardly recognize the gay young 
 fellow of the early evening. He was lighting his cigar 
 as he spoke, and he puffed at it two or three times before 
 he went on moodily: 
 
 "I wish to heaven I had left the navy when I married! 
 it 's no place for a married man. And just as Kitty and 
 I are getting on so famously I have to go off and leave her 
 for three years, and there 's no knowing what will happen 
 in that time!" 
 
 "Nothing serious, I hope," said Morland encourag- 
 ingly, who concluded Sutherland's gloom was a very 
 natural one, due to the impending parting. " But I own it 
 is hard to have to leave a wife and baby for three years, 
 though there are always letters and the joy of the return 
 to look forward to." 
 
 Sutherland did not answer at first, then he said abruptlj " 
 "Do you know that fellow Montclair ?" 
 
208 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 "Slightly," returned Morland stiffly — he hated the name. 
 
 "You don't seem to like him any better than I do," said 
 Sutherland grimly. "I am going to ask a favour of you, 
 Senator. As an older man and an old friend, I am sure 
 anything you say or do will have great weight with Kitty; 
 will you see that she has nothing to do with Monclair? 
 And will you look out for her when I am away, and if you 
 see her doing things that would be likely to get her talked 
 about, will you give her some of that friendly advice you 've 
 been giving me ? Not that I don't trust Kitty," he added 
 quickly, seeing a little look of embarrassment on Mor- 
 land's face. "I wish I could trust myself half as well; 
 but she 's young, and she loves pleasure, and she 's very 
 beautiful. All that in itself would be a dangerous combina- 
 tion, but I believe that you can add to the combination 
 that there is a villain determined to injure her, in reputa- 
 tion at least!" 
 
 He said this last so bitterly and with such intensity that 
 Morland answered only that part of his speech. 
 
 "Why — what have you seen or heard?" he asked, 
 quietly but keenly. 
 
 "I saw Kitty turn him down this evening very neatly. 
 I was proud of the way she did it. But I saw, what she 
 could not, that he followed her with a look that meant 
 revenge, and made me almost ready to throw up my com- 
 mission and stay at home." 
 
 "I wish you could," said Morland seriously, "but if 
 you can't, console yourself that looks don't kill." 
 
 "There was more than the look. Just before I called 
 you out here I overheard him talking to a young lady. 
 She was teasing him about somebody that had snubbed 
 him, and I thought from the tones of her voice she was a 
 
JOHN MORLAND 209 
 
 bit jealous herself, and from Montclair's words and manner 
 that he was quite willing that she should be. He seemed 
 almost to sneer as he answered her: 'Oh, don't laugh too 
 soon,' he said, ' I '11 have chances to pay her back. Her 
 husband leaves to-morrow for a three years' cruise.' Of 
 course then I knew he meant Kitty." 
 
 The two men were silent for a moment. Morland was 
 thinking hard and Sutherland was looking off at the river 
 as if fascinated by the white flood flowing swiftly down 
 imder the moonlight to the distant bay. Morland broke 
 the silence. 
 
 "I know something of this Montclair, Sutherland," 
 he said quietly, "and I do not believe he is to be greatly 
 feared. No doubt he is capable of thinking all kinds of 
 evil, but he is too much of a coward to carry it out. And 
 I have not answered your request — I will look out for 
 your wife, and just as you would if you were here. She 
 shall not suffer in her reputation through Montclair or 
 any one else if I can help it." 
 
 Morland spoke with something of the same grim vehem- 
 ence Sutherland had used. It seemed to comfort Suther- 
 land for a moment, but he broke out again immediately. 
 
 "My God! To think that I could listen to such words 
 and not call the man out!" he exclaimed passionately. 
 "But two hours from now I must be on my horse on my 
 way to the West Shore where the launch will meet me at a 
 point near Westmoreland. I promised to be there by ten 
 o'clock to-morrow morning, and I dare not risk any delay. 
 They will not wait for me and my ship will sail without 
 me if I am not on time. What shall I do, Major 
 Morland ? Shall I throw up my commission and stay, 
 and have him out?" 
 
210 THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 
 
 " No," said Morland, " He 's not worth it. As I said, 
 he 's a coward. I doubt whether you would ever get him to 
 meet you, and it is not as if he had made such a speech in 
 pubhc, in the presence of honourable people. I have an 
 idea the young lady to whom he spoke is not much better 
 than he." 
 
 "You 're right, I suppose," said Sutherland slowly, 
 and then, with a little gesture of concentrated irritation, 
 as if dismissing the whole unpleasant subject, he added : 
 
 "But I must go and get Kitty. She does not know 
 that I am leaving so soon — she thinks it is not imtil to- 
 to-morrow. Poor girl!" 
 
 He started to go back into the house, but stopped and 
 turned once more to the flowing river. He gazed at 
 it, as if fascinated, for a full minute, while Morland 
 stood quietly watching him. With an effort he roused 
 himself and turned to Morland with a little shiver. 
 
 "Ugh!" he said, "I hate it! It flows on so steadily and 
 so relentlessly; no power on earth can stop it, even for a 
 second! And, just beyond, it rushes down into the great 
 waters of the Chesapeake and is lost forever. I shudder 
 when I look at it. I feel as if it were whirling me down 
 with it into that great gulf. Lost — lost!" 
 
 It was evident that some strong emotion was over- 
 mastering him; some dark premonition born of his con- 
 sciousness of his own weak will that left him powerless — 
 a plaything in the hands of fate. While Morland had little 
 sympathy for weakness, he respected Sutherland's 
 emotion; it was too genuine and had too real a reason for 
 its being to be lightly scoffed at. The two men turned and 
 went silently back to the brilliantly lighted house; to the 
 gay throngs, to music, and flowers, and wine, and — Kitty. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 ON THE BLUFFS AT ARLINGTON 
 
 AMID torrents of tears from Kitty, Sutherland started 
 ■ on his lonely ride through the pine barrens of the 
 West Shore to overtake the launch that was to bear him to 
 the Argus, waiting for him in Hampton Roads. 
 
 Late as it was, Morland and Mrs. McCabe were up to 
 speed his parting with what cheer they could, but he and 
 Kitty had had a quiet half-hour of farewells in their own 
 room after the last thing had gone into his tightly packed 
 • saddle-bags. In that hour, they had made many promises 
 of mutual devotion and constancy. They were to write 
 interminable letters to one another — though in that day 
 all letters were interminable, since postage was no small 
 item — and Kitty voluntarily pledged herself to be such a 
 model of prudence in society and devotion to her baby at 
 home as should win for her the title of another Penelope. 
 Sutherland on his part had many pledges to make also. 
 A mail should never cross the Atlantic that did not bring 
 reams of letters to his Kitty; and as for his one fatal habit, 
 he would break its chains if it cost him his life! 
 
 With more faith in each other than they had felt since 
 the epoch-making dinner party at Kalorama they parted, 
 and for the first few months of their separation their 
 promises were unbroken, and Morland went home to 
 Tennessee at the close of the extra session with a light 
 heart about Kitty. So far there had not been a breath of 
 
 m 
 
212 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 gossip about her that he could discover in gossip-loving 
 Washington. 
 
 It was the era of the "Bargain and Corruption" cry. 
 It broke out before the election, raged bitterly in the inter- 
 val between the election and the inauguration, and showed 
 no symptoms of dying out in the months that followed the 
 inauguration. It was the great rally cry of the second 
 Jackson campaign which, unlike most campaigns, set in 
 in earnest on the very heels of its predecessor. Adams had 
 hardly taken his seat in the Presidential chair, when Jack- 
 son's name was ringing from the Atlantic to the Gulf 
 as candidate for 1828. His going home, after the Senate 
 rose in the spring, was a triumphal progress : banqueting 
 and speech-making in every town, and the people welcom- 
 ing him with the acclaims of thousands, as if he were a 
 conquering hero instead of a defeated candidate. 
 
 Adams would have liked to be his own successor. Almost 
 every President up to this time had served two terms; 
 should he be an exception to that rule, it would look 
 as if his administration had failed of the people's approval, 
 and he was sensitively alive to the stigma of such a failiu-e. 
 But there was not much hope for Adams with that " Bargain 
 and Corruption" cry dinned into the ears of the people by 
 the Jackson politicians, until Jackson became no longer 
 the great military idol alone, he was also the great political 
 martyr, whom Clay had sold to Adams in return for the 
 portfolio of State. 
 
 And if it was a cry that destroyed all chances of Adams 
 succeeding himself, still more was it a cry that hounded 
 Clay in the Presidential contests of the future and kept 
 him from ever getting within reach of the Presidential chair. 
 Knowing the two men, as the clear and impartial light of 
 
JOHN MORLAND 213 
 
 history has revealed them, since the smoke of contest has 
 cleared away, it is impossible to believe that Adams, the 
 soul of integrity, could offer, or Clay, the exponent of 
 honour, accept the portfolio of State as the price of the 
 Presidency. But the Jackson men believed it, and were 
 all the more ready to believe it because some of them had 
 tried to persuade Jackson to make Clay the same offer. 
 The old hero had repelled the suggestion with scorn; he 
 would have the Presidency only as the gift of the people, 
 and take it with clean hands, or not at all. But some of his 
 followers were not so scrupulous. 
 
 Yet, innocent as we must believe Clay to have been of the 
 crime of selling the Presidency, no one could deny that he 
 was guilty of another great crime — the betraying of the 
 people. The people had clearly indicated their choice; 
 what right had he to set up his individual judgment against 
 the sovereign will of the people! Dearly he suffered for 
 his crime, and to him, who coveted the Presidency as the 
 fitting crown to a brilliant career more ardently than almost 
 any American has ever coveted it, it must have seemed, in 
 those later years when again and again he offered himself 
 as candidate in vain, that his punishment was out of pro- 
 portion to his sin. He had robbed the people's idol of the 
 Presidency, and the people could not forget it when he 
 sought their suffrages for himself. 
 
 With all the stir of the times and Morland, close at Jack- 
 son's side, in the very heart of the tumult, there was little 
 time to dwell on Kitty's affairs through that summer and 
 fall. Therein lies the radical difference between a man's 
 life and a woman's life. Had Kitty been as deeply 
 interested in Morland as Morland was in Kitty, she would 
 have thought of him, brooded over her relations to him. 
 
214 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 been absorbed in him to the paHng of every other interest 
 in life. But Morland was feeling comparatively secure 
 about Kitty, and the love of Jackson's friends for their 
 chieftain was passing the love of women, making such de- 
 mands on their affection and their thoughts as left little 
 room for other affections and other thoughts. 
 
 When it came time to return to Congress in the fall it 
 seemed best to the heads of the party that Morland should 
 give up his seat for the next year. Jackson had resigned 
 from the Senate, and Morland's place was at Jackson's 
 side^ if that campaign, already inaugurated, was to sweep on 
 to triumph in 1828. It was not without a struggle that Mor- 
 land consented to this arrangement. He had his party's 
 pledge that at the end of the year he should have his seat 
 again, but the thought of his promise to Sutherland and the 
 fear of what might happen to Kitty in those intervening 
 months, with his guard and protection withdrawn from her, 
 filled him with an anxiety akin to a mother's anxiety for a 
 wayward child. He wrote to Sutherland telling him 
 of how little use to him he could be, but Sutherland's 
 reply was cheerful. He and Kitty were evidently 
 living up to their parting vows; Sutherland himself had 
 no fears for his wife; it would be foolish in Morland 
 to entertain any. 
 
 Nevertheless, that he might keep in touch with her in his 
 absence, and be ready to go to her if she should need him, 
 he entered into a correspondence with both Kitty and 
 Kitty's mother. Their letters, happy in tone and full of 
 cheery gossip, reassured him more than anything else 
 could. Once also, in the Januaiy of 1826, he made a flying 
 trip to Washington and all seemed well to him there. He 
 heard no gossip, he saw nothing of Montclair, and 
 
JOHN MORLAND 215 
 
 Kitty's frequent letters from her husband brought her 
 undisguised deHght. 
 
 In the fall of 1826 Morland went back to take his seat 
 once more in the Senate. He found Kitty's baby a golden- 
 haired angel of two years with the spirituelle beauty of its 
 grandmother rather than the radiantly human beauty of 
 its mother. Kitty seemed to him a devoted mother; 
 certainly she was very proud of her beautiful child, and he 
 did not for the first week or two discover that all was not 
 as well as when he had been in Washington the winter 
 before. Then there began to drift to him bits of gossip, 
 idle and of little weight, but always connecting Kitty's 
 name with Montclair. How such a state of affairs had 
 come about Morland could not at first guess, but gradually, 
 from his own observation and from an occasional word let 
 drop by Kitty's anxious mother, and sometimes by a bitter 
 one from Kitty, he pieced out for himself an explanation 
 that came very near to being the correct one. 
 
 Sutherland's letters had, for nearly a year, come regu- 
 larly and been satisfactory in length and contents. Then 
 they had come at longer and longer intervals and much 
 shrunken in volume. Kitty grew restless, then reckless 
 and bitter. She, too, wrote seldom, and when her letters 
 were not filled with bitter reproaches they were but a brief 
 statement of the weather and the welfare of herself and the 
 baby. She guessed the cause of her husband's derelictions, 
 but the first confirmation of her fears came through Mont- 
 clair, whom she met one evening at dinner and whose 
 attentions she recklessly courted instead of, as had been her 
 habit for the last year, disdainfully ignoring them. He 
 insinuated, as delicately as he could manage it, that 
 through letters from some of his friends on the Argus he 
 
216 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 had learned that Sutherland was drinking heavily, and he 
 started to express his sympathy for Sutherland's wife. 
 But Kitty flamed out on him in a way that made Mont- 
 clair drop the subject of Sutherland's sins as if it were a 
 hot coal. For a while Kitty hated Montclair, and refused 
 to see him or talk to him. None the less did he take his 
 first opportunity, a few weeks later, to let her know that he 
 had further tidings from the Argus, and they were no 
 better than the first. Kitty was again resentful, but more 
 mildly so; and Montclair persisting in his insidious course, 
 there came a time when Kitty listened to his tales of her 
 husband and accepted his proffered sympathy. 
 
 Morland had come back to Washington with the inten- 
 tion of rather shunning society. He had been a social 
 favourite for years and he was tiring of it; now he decided 
 to refuse no more invitations to dinners and dances, and to 
 go everywhere that Kitty went. It was not a pleasant duty 
 he had set himself — a sort of police duty — and it was 
 particularly repellent to a man of Morland's tastes and 
 feelings, but he was mindful of his promise to Sutherland 
 and he regretted that he had been necessarily faithless to 
 it thus far. 
 
 In the months that followed Morland was Kitty's con- 
 stant escort to every place that needed an escort. Mont- 
 clair found little chance to speak to her, except under the 
 eye of Morland or in the midst of throngs. He chafed at 
 this, but only set himself the more keenly and the more 
 cunningly to elude Morland's vigilance, and to improve 
 every chance moment with Kitty by showing himself to 
 her in the most attractive light. He knew Kitty's weak 
 points; he knew that she needed the sweets of flattery 
 in her mental pabulum as much as she needed sugar in 
 
JOHN MORLAND 217 
 
 her tea, and he lost no opportunity, if only by a glance or a 
 word, of offering it to her. This was in strong contrast 
 to Morland's methods, who was more likely to take the r61e 
 with Kitty of stem mentor than of beguiling flatterer, and 
 Kitty began to be drawn by the sugar-coated bait of the 
 one, and to fret a little under the sternness of the other. 
 
 There were times when she hated Montclair, and times 
 when she was totally indifferent to him; but there were also 
 times when he attracted her powerfully with a fascination 
 she could neither explain nor resist. Now that her inter- 
 views with him had become, in a sense, stolen ones, she 
 began to look forward to them with something of the same 
 eagerness she had felt in her school-girl days in clandestine 
 meetings with boy lovers when she had eluded the vigilance 
 of her teachers. Morland had succeeded in putting a stop 
 to the gossip about Montclair and Kitty, but he had accom- 
 plished it at the expense of arousing in Kitty a much more 
 dangerous interest in Montclair than she had yet felt, and 
 — a thing of which neither he nor Kitty drearhed, but over 
 which Montclair chuckled with secret pleasure — he had 
 set the gossips' tongues wagging about himself and Kitty. 
 To Kitty, to whom her relation to Morland had always 
 seemed a filial one, and to Morland, who knew so well the 
 purity of his own motives, such a result would have seemed 
 impossible if it had ever been suggested to them. 
 
 But fortunately it was not, for Morland had set himself 
 in earnest to win Kitty away from Montclair, and no 
 thought of self obtruded to weaken his purpose. He had 
 rare gifts socially, and he commanded all the arts of which 
 he was master to his aid in this two-handed contest. It 
 was two-handed, because he recognized that it was not so 
 much Montclair he must train his guns upon as Kitty. 
 
218 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 Montclair was to be met with his own weapons of schem- 
 ing and contriving to prevent as much as possible his getting 
 access to Kitty; but to Kitty he must lay regular siege, 
 charming her into indifference or forgetfulness of Mont- 
 clair. If he could accomplish that he would have nothing 
 to fear from him. 
 
 It was fortunate also, or so Morland thought, that 
 an extra session of Congress was summoned this year, 
 and he could be on guard through the enticing spring 
 months when opening buds, and mating birds, and soft 
 languorous breezes all woo to youthful indiscretions; and 
 still more fortunate that Kitty and Janet were invited to 
 spend the summer on the Jamestown plantation with 
 Sutherland's family; he could go back to Tennessee feeling 
 quite safe about Kitty. 
 
 He set his return to Washington in the fall at as early a 
 date as he could find any excuse for setting it, but he was 
 quite sure, from almost the first moment of his meeting 
 Kitty, that it had not been early enough, and he would have 
 much of his work to do over. Kitty had stayed on the 
 Virginia plantation until the last of September, but she 
 had been in Washington six weeks without Morland, and 
 Montclair had not neglected his opportunities. 
 
 To do Kitty justice, Montclair had found it more dif- 
 ficult to regain his lost ground than he had expected. 
 Kitty was so angry with her husband — since his letters 
 had almost entirely ceased, and reports of his misdoings 
 were more frequent and more imforgivable — that it was 
 from no sense of loyalty to him that she was restrained from 
 receiving Montclair's attentions. But she was, in a 
 measure, restrained by a feeling of loyalty to Sutherland's 
 family, by whom she had been so cordially entertained all 
 
JOHN MORLAND 219 
 
 summer; and, although she did not fully recognize it, also 
 by a feeling that while she was perfectly willing to try to 
 elude Morland's vigilance when he was on guard, it seemed 
 a little like violating a parole to take advantage of his 
 absence. So long had she been accustomed to regard him 
 as a mentor, that though she often resented what she called 
 his " interferences, " she yet tacitly acknowledged his right 
 to them. 
 
 But whatever Montclair's other qualities were he had 
 one admirable one — the rather rare quality of keeping 
 his purpose steadily in view and deviating neither to the 
 right nor to the left until he had accomplished it. His 
 purpose now was not the simple one of seeking to amuse 
 himself with Kitty — the amusement was to be merely 
 incidental; his real aim was to annoy Morland to the extent 
 of his ability and to have his revenge on Kitty for the 
 several discomfitures he had suffered at her hands by 
 making her the subject of ill-natured gossip. That he 
 would be the subject of the same gossip did not at 
 all daunt him; to be regarded as a dangerous man 
 with the ladies was a reputation he rather coveted than 
 shunned. 
 
 Against such definiteness of purpose, Kitty, the prey to 
 every passing emotion, flitting through life lightly and 
 aimlessly as any butterfly, had no weapons to contend, 
 and scruples and resistance were both fast melting away 
 before the fascination of Montclair when Morland 
 appeared on the scene. Through all that winter he did 
 not relax his efforts to make himself ubiquitous where 
 Kitty was, and thereby circumvent Montclair; and though 
 he was not quite as successful as he had been through the 
 preceding winter in preventing Montclair from seeing much 
 
220 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 of Kitty, he was quite as successful in getting himself 
 talked about — much to Montclair's delight. 
 
 The spring was at hand, and it was nearing the time 
 when Morland must return to Tennessee. He could find 
 no pretext for remaining in Washington longer than the 
 middle of April. Although it was the long session of Con- 
 gress, Tennessee was calling him and he must go. He 
 greatly dreaded leaving Kitty, knowing that even should 
 the Sutherlands again invite her to Virginia there must 
 still be an interval of a month or two of tempting spring 
 weather, with Washington at its loveliest, when she would 
 be at the mercy of Montclair. In his perplexity Morland 
 sometimes thought of writing Sutherland to throw up his 
 commission and come home and look after Kitty, who, he 
 frankly acknowledged, was too much for him. 
 
 Kitty had not realized that in these three years of her 
 husband's absence she had been gradually dropping out 
 of society, that invitations came less and less frequently, 
 and that now it was rare, indeed, that she was included in 
 any of the formal parties of society proper. But Morland 
 had noticed it and resented it keenly for Kitty's sake; 
 and though invitations continued to pour in upon him, 
 since he was still Washington's most eligible bachelor, it 
 was seldom that he accepted any of them. 
 
 Early in April, Washington was agog with rumours of 
 a great garden party to be given by Mr. and Mrs. Custis 
 of Arlington, and those who hung on the fringes of society 
 with an uncertain grasp were in agonies of suspense lest 
 they should be omitted from the list of guests. No such 
 doubts seemed to assail Kitty. Though her acquaintance 
 with Mrs. Custis was slight, she talked as happily of the 
 anticipated joys of the Arlington party as if her invitation 
 
JOHN MORLAND 221 
 
 were already assured, and her only perplexity was to decide 
 upon the frock that would be most becoming and most 
 proper for the occasion. Mrs. McCabe and Morland had 
 no such feeling of certainty. 
 
 "I think I '11 wear my sprigged lavender dimity, 
 mother," said Kitty one evening in Mrs. McCabe's parlour, 
 as she was talking gaily of the all-absorbing theme to Mor- 
 land and her mother. " And I must have a new bonnet 
 trimmed with lilacs to wear with it, and you will have 
 to lend me the money to buy it, since Will's letter is 
 overdue." 
 
 Morland surprised a wistful look in Mrs. McCabe's 
 eyes as she answered Kitty, and he guessed what it meant. 
 The invitations were out, and Kitty's mother knew it, and 
 knew that Kitty had been slighted again. 
 
 "Kitty," he said abruptly, "I hear Janet calling you, 
 where is she?" 
 
 Kitty was as fond of Janet as any little girl would have 
 been of a beautiful doll. She ran away to find her and gave 
 Morland his opportunity. He stopped Mrs. McCabe 
 who, thinking there might be something the matter, had 
 started to follow Kitty. 
 
 "No, it 's nothing, I 'm sure," he said, "and I wanted 
 to speak to you a moment while Kitty is out of the room. 
 She shall have her invitation to Arlington, if I can compass 
 it. I am going to see Mrs. Decatur, but in the meantime 
 I want you to keep Kitty at home. I don't want her to 
 meet any one who will be likely to ask her if she has 
 received an invitation." 
 
 Kitty was back, carrying the laughing and radiant Janet 
 in her arms, before Mrs. McCabe had time to reply, and 
 Morland only waited to take Janet from her mother and 
 
222 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 toss her up to the ceiling — quite after the manner of Jeff's 
 instructions — before setting off on his errand to Kalorama. 
 
 Mrs. Decatur listened to his somewhat embarrassed 
 petition for Kitty with a demure little smile playing 
 about the corners of her mouth. 
 
 "Why do you suppose Mrs. Sutherland is not invited ?" 
 she asked mercilessly, when Morland waited for her reply. 
 
 "You know as well as I do, Mrs. Decatur," he returned 
 half defiantly, " that Mrs. Sutherland is not always discreet, 
 and that a young and beautiful woman is often the victim 
 of her own charms. But you do not know as well as I 
 what a perfect child she is; as guileless as one, I believe, 
 and looking forward to this party with all the happy, 
 light-hearted anticipations of a child; not dreaming for a 
 moment that she will not be invited. And I cannot bear to 
 have her disappointed any more than I could bear to see 
 a child hurt." 
 
 Mrs. Decatur looked at him wonderingly. Evidently 
 this man had no idea that it was his own frequent appear- 
 ances in public with Kitty that were largely responsible 
 for her social ostracism. Well, he should have a hint of it 
 from her. She herself had no doubt of his integrity, and 
 he was too fine a man to let him go on blindly in a course 
 that was hurting him and destroying the pretty Mrs. 
 Sutherland socially. 
 
 "Senator Morland," she said, "I will do my best to get 
 this invitation for you, and I think I may succeed, since 
 Mrs. Custis is my very good friend; but I want you to 
 promise me that, for Mrs. Sutherland's sake, you will not 
 be her escort to the party." 
 
 Morland was a Southerner, and not very quick at sus- 
 pecting covert meanings, and for a moment he stared 
 
JOHN MORLAND 223 
 
 blankly at Mrs. Decatur. Then his eyes dropped and the 
 red glowed dully through the bronze of his cheek. 
 
 "I think I understand you, Mrs. Decatur," he said, 
 rising to his feet with a little of the stateliness natural to 
 him when he was offended. " If you will only be so good as 
 to secure this invitation for Mrs. Sutherland I will see that 
 she has a proper escort." 
 
 It was a new aspect in which to view himself — that he 
 could be responsible for any of this gossip that had been 
 flying about Washington so greatly to Kitty's detriment. 
 But, the idea having been once suggested to him, he could 
 readily see how easily his anxious protection of Kitty could 
 be misinterpreted. Well, things were getting more and 
 more muddled. Sutherland would have to come home 
 and look after his wife; that settled it; his hands were tied 
 now. Of course, he would not accompany Kitty to 
 Arlington, and he realized, with a new understanding of 
 himself, that this was a keen disappointment to him; but 
 since he could not be her escort it remained for him to see 
 that she should have a suitable one — it should not be 
 Montclair. To insure against the possibility of its being 
 Montclair he decided that he must at once make an engage- 
 ment with Kitty himself, and then go to work to find some 
 one to take his place when, at the last moment, he should 
 plead business as an excuse for not going. 
 
 Kitty may or may not have felt disappointed that Mor- 
 land was ahead of all others in making an engagement with 
 her for the Arlington party, but she accepted him as a 
 matter of course, only saying, with a playfulness that 
 betrayed she had no fears on the subject: "I'm not 
 invited yet." Two days later her invitation came, and 
 though by that time she had discovered that it was a 
 
224 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 little delayed, she had no inkling of how near it had 
 been to not coming at all. 
 
 Morland had also secured his substitute. It was not 
 possible that through all these two years of heated recrim- 
 inations — charges of "Bargain and Corruption" by the 
 Jackson party and indignant denials by the Clay party — 
 that the friendly relations between Clay and Morland 
 should remain unstrained. Yet it was indicative of Clay's 
 generous temper, recognized alike by friend and foe, that 
 Morland should feel but little hesitation in turning to him 
 in this extremity. 
 
 "You see how it is," he said, after the preliminary 
 explanations. "It has been hinted to me that I am not a 
 proper escort for Mrs. Sutherland, but to prevent a more 
 undesirable one, or at least so I consider him, than even 
 myself, I have made this engagement with her, intending 
 at the last moment to plead a press of business as excuse 
 for not going. But I don't want her disappointed, and I 
 thought, perhaps, out of your old friendship for her mother, 
 you and Mrs. Clay would be willing to take her and look 
 after her there." 
 
 " Of course we will," said Clay heartily, " and be proud 
 to do it. I 'd do anything for Mrs. McCabe, but I 'd do 
 a good deal, also, for the peerless Kitty. We '11 take her, 
 and we '11 look after her and keep her straight, if that 's 
 what you mean." 
 
 That was exactly what Morland meant, though he 
 winced a little at the term as applied so frankly to Kitty. 
 Kitty herself when, on the morning of the party, she found 
 that Morland was not going, and that he had turned her 
 over to Mr. and Mrs. Clay, was inclined for a moment to 
 be rebellious. Only for a moment, however. She liked 
 
JOHN MORLAND 225 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Clay, and since the point was to be suita- 
 bly presented at the party, certainly she could have no 
 more distinguished protector than the charming Secretary 
 of St^te, unless it were the President himself. 
 
 Two o'clock saw Kitty at the landing with the Clays 
 and the rest of the party, ready to embark in a veritable 
 flotilla of small boats that were to carry them over to 
 Arlington. She was wearing her white dimity sprigged 
 with lavender, and her new bonnet, with nodding bunches 
 of lilacs, tied under her chin in a bewitching bow of lilac 
 ribbon, and her narrow skirts were short enough to show 
 the prettiest little foot in Washington in low-cut shoes with 
 high heels and shining buckles. Little she cared that most 
 of the women of the party looked at her askance — the 
 Lees and the Calhouns and the Bentons, her old school- 
 mates, just barely nodding to her. She was surrounded 
 by a mob of men, and the waving chestnut curls, the 
 dancing eyes, the saucy curling lashes, the rose-leaf cheek, 
 the scarlet curves of the full lips, parted to let the ringing 
 musical laugh peal between them, were enough to bewitch 
 the eyes of all the men and freeze the glances of all the 
 women. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Custis met them at the landing with the 
 old-time gracious hospitality that must welcome the com- 
 ing guest at the outer gates of their domain, and in a few 
 minutes the hundred merry visitors were climbing the 
 bluff to the plateau on which the house stood or scat- 
 tered over the grassy slopes of beautiful Arlington. A 
 pavilion had been erected for dancing under the trees, and 
 on the very edge of the bluff, shaded by great maples and 
 lindens, stood the long tables ready set for the five o'clock 
 dinner. Hidden in a clump of locust bushes an orchestra 
 
226 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 filled the air with strains of music that came from no one 
 knew where, and floated down the shady alleys and over 
 the velvety lawns and through the corridors and galleries 
 and drawing-rooms of the great house, filling every leafy 
 nook and cosy corner with the gala spirit of mirth and 
 jollity, and setting feet to tripping and tongues to wagging. 
 
 But the younger set had caught sight of the pavilion and 
 were eager for the dance, and by three o'clock the orchestra 
 had left its locust covert and taken its place on a little 
 platform in the pavilion arranged for it, and its merry 
 strains of welcome had given place to the still livelier 
 music of the dance. Kitty was as much of a belle as in 
 the days of her girlhood; her fame as a dancer was 
 partly responsible — her crowning by Mrs. Madison at 
 Brown's Hotel in Georgetown was not forgotten — but 
 partly, also, it was her beauty and a certain sparkling 
 Irish love of fun and audacity that drew the young men 
 around her in crowds. Naturally Montclair was one of the 
 most eager, but Kitty, from that same odd little sense of 
 loyalty to Morland, kept putting him off. Had Morland 
 been present she would have danced with Montclair 
 willingly, if for no other reason than to annoy Morland 
 and defy his espionage. 
 
 Dancing the minuet was already beginning to be a lost 
 art. The new lancers, a square dance as it was called, 
 had come into favour with a rush, and together with the 
 whirling waltz had almost driven out the stately dance of 
 our great-grandmothers. But it was still necessary to have 
 at least one minuet at every party if dancers could be 
 found who knew the steps, and there were no two people 
 who could dance it so perfectly as Kitty and IMontclair. 
 Kitty's laurels at Brown's Hotel had been won in the 
 
JOHN MORLAND 227 
 
 minuet, and Montclair was exactly the figure and had all 
 the necessary airs and graces to adorn that dance. He 
 easily persuaded Kitty that for the minuet, at least, no 
 other partner would be so desirable or appropriate, and 
 she had danced with so many others his dancing with her 
 would hardly add any food for gossip. 
 
 They found themselves facing young Robert Lee and 
 Nellie Custis, the beautiful daughter of the house. Young 
 Lee was home from West Point on leave of absence, and 
 had ridden all the way over from his father's plantation in 
 Westmoreland to attend this party. He was only twenty, 
 but even at that age he was tall and splendidly propor- 
 tioned, with dark eyes that could flash and soften adorably. 
 He was as beautiful as a picture and many a pretty girl 
 would have liked to win the attentions of "Light-Horse 
 Harry" Lee's handsome son, but he had eyes for Nellie 
 Custis only. 
 
 It had amused Kitty to see the manoeuvres of the girls 
 in trying to attract the young Robert's attention, and 
 now, finding herself opposite him in the minuet, she 
 decided to try her own powers. She was nearly three years 
 older than he, but she was still a girl at heart, and to 
 succeed where others failed was always a keen delight to 
 Kitty. She smiled on him bewitchingly at every turn in 
 the dance, and the boy, who had a quick eye for beauty 
 in a woman and who had never before seen anything quite 
 so radiantly beautiful as Kitty, could not but be flattered 
 by her smiles. He returned them and very soon found him- 
 self eagerly looking for them and, as the dance gave him 
 opportunity, adding little gallant speeches to his smiles. 
 
 Kitty was pleased with her small triumph, but Nellie 
 Custis was not, and very soon began to make it evident 
 
228 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 th£^t she was not to any one who cared to see. Young Lee 
 did not at first seem to notice her displeasure, and kept on 
 with his httle gallantries to Kitty, and Kitty herself was 
 rather pleased than otherwise at the effect she had pro- 
 duced. But it was really sport quite unworthy of Kitty, 
 for she soon realized that they were only boy and girl, 
 and openly infatuated with each other. When young Lee 
 awoke to an appreciation of his partner's displeasure, and 
 tried to make amends by every means in his power only to 
 be openly disdained, he began to look greatly troubled 
 and Kitty relented. She was gravity itself as she passed 
 him in the dance, and she seized an opportunity of making 
 a frank apology to Nellie Custis. 
 
 "Forgive me, Miss Custis," she said, with a smile of 
 such apparent deference and contrition as no young girl 
 could withstand. " I have been very rude in trying to engage 
 Mr. Lee's attention when he had eyes and ears for no one 
 but you. He is so very handsome, you know, it is hard to 
 resist a desire to make his beaux yeux smile on one; but 
 he has easily given me to understand his smiles are for one 
 only, certainly not for a woman old enough to be his 
 mother" — a wildly imaginative figure of speech, but it 
 had the intended effect on the youthful Nellie — "and I 
 am properly punished." 
 
 The sixteen-year-old girl readily forgave the woman of 
 nearly twenty-three ("old enough to be the mother" of a 
 boy of twenty), and in forgiving her forgave her lover. 
 Kitty's smiles were all for Nellie, as were the young Lee's, 
 and in after years Mrs. Robert E. Lee could never be made 
 to believe the scandalous tales the gossips loved to tell of 
 Kitty, and which, at the Arlington party, she had been too 
 young to have heard. 
 
JOHN MORLAND 229 
 
 Montclair drew Kitty away as the dance ended. 
 
 "Come Kitty," he said, "I have something to show 
 you." 
 
 Kitty was nothing loath, and when the "something" 
 proved to be a clump of locust bushes in a grove of locust 
 trees on the very brink of the bluff, overlooking Washing- 
 ton and open to the western breezes, Kitty threw herself 
 down with a sigh of rapture on one of the lichen-covered 
 rocks that offered themselves as seats in this green covert. 
 
 "Why, it is the most beautiful spot in the world," she 
 exclaimed, "fit to be a fairy bower. How did you find it, 
 Harold?" 
 
 " It 's fit to be a bower for the most beautiful woman in 
 the world," returned Montclair impressively, throwing 
 himself at her feet on the soft turf. " I hunted it up for 
 you. I was sure there must be something like this some- 
 where about if I could only find it, and when you would n't 
 dance that waltz with me I spent the dance looking for 
 it and found it." 
 
 "Thereby heaping coals of fire on my head," said Kitty, 
 laughing. She did not entirely like the way Montclair 
 looked at her, and began to wish this sylvan retreat were 
 not quite so secluded. 
 
 "You are looking more beautiful than I ever saw you, 
 Kitty," said Montclair ardently, or with assumed ardour, 
 "and it 's cruel of you. You long ago reduced my heart 
 to ashes, and now you set the ashes to blazing." 
 
 Kitty did not mind compliments of that order, she was 
 used to them, and she dimpled prettily and appropriately 
 as she replied : 
 
 "I always said it was ashes, you know, but you would 
 insist it was a heart." 
 
230 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 " Heart or ashes, it 's blazing now, when I think of how 
 that man treats you," he said with heat. "It 's worse and 
 worse, Kitty." 
 
 Kitty was silent. She had descended to listening to 
 Montclair's insinuations about her husband, but she had 
 not quite descended to talking him over with him. Mont- 
 clair sighed. 
 
 "Kitty, if ever there was a woman in the world bom 
 for happiness and love, it 's you, and to think you 
 should have to be tied to a man like that, when 
 there 's one, at least, dying to give you everything the 
 world can offer." 
 
 Kitty had begun to think herself ill-used, too, and she 
 gave herself a little impatient shake. 
 
 " Oh, don't let 's talk about it, Harold, or think about it; 
 it can't be helped." 
 
 "I can't help thinking about it, Kitty. If they 'd only 
 let us alone that night, just seven years ago to-day, how 
 different it would all have been ! You belonged to me 
 before you did to him." 
 
 It had been nearly three months now since Kitty had 
 heard a word from Sutherland, and her heart was very 
 bitter toward him. For a moment she wished with all 
 her soul that it had been Montclair instead, and with 
 drooping lids and mounting colour, she said softly : 
 
 " I believe I did belong to you first, Harold." 
 
 It was more than enough encouragement for Montclair. 
 He seized her hand and covered it with burning kisses, 
 while Kitty, half pleased, half frightened, struggled to 
 draw it away. But, of course, he was not going to let it go 
 easily until Kitty, really angry, drew herself up. 
 
 "Very well," she said coldly, "I will go back and find 
 
JOHN MORLAND 231 
 
 Mr. Clay. I thought I could trust myself here with you, 
 but it seems I cannot." 
 
 Montclair did not like her tone. Also, he had seen a 
 boat put out from the Washington landing with a single 
 passenger, and it was rapidly nearing Arlington. That 
 passenger looked to him like Morland, and he was not sure 
 but he and Kitty could be distinguished in their eyrie as 
 easily as Morland in his boat. 
 
 "If I must," he said, relinquishing her hand slowly. 
 "Only stay with me Kitty, and I will tell you what I want 
 you to do. It will be nearly full moon to-night, and I want 
 you to go boating with me on Rock Creek. We will float 
 down into the Potomac, and think how beautiful the river 
 will be by moonlight!" 
 
 "Oh, no!" said Kitty, quickly. "I could n't possibly." 
 She had never yet done anything quite so bold as that, and 
 the thought of it frightened her. 
 
 "But why not, Kitty?" insisted Montclair. 
 
 " Oh, think how late it will be by the time we get home ! 
 We are not to leave here until seven; it will be eight at 
 least before we reach the house." 
 
 "And if I call for you at half past eight we could spend 
 an hour on the river and you would be home by ten. 
 Kitty — I call my fast horse Kitty, you know — would 
 easily take us to the creek in fifteen minutes." 
 
 But Kitty shook her head. " What would they thmk ?" 
 she demurred. 
 
 "Who think?" demanded Montclair curtly. 
 
 "Why — mother — and — father — and — Senator Mor- 
 land." 
 
 "Kitty! are you a married woman or are you a baby? 
 What has Morland got to do with it ? You are responsible 
 
232 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 to no one but your husbandj and he does n't care a picayune 
 what you do. He goes off and has good times with other 
 women. There 's no reason in the world why you should 
 not have a little pleasure. Do, for once, assert yourself, 
 Kitty." 
 
 Kitty was wavering. 
 
 " I 've no doubt I get the credit of doing such things," 
 she said, a little bitterly, "and I suppose I might as well 
 have the fun." 
 
 " Of course," assented Montclair, too eager to be cour- 
 teous, " and it will be such fun ! It 's going to be a glorious 
 night, and everybody will be at the President's levee, and 
 we '11 have the river to ourselves. Come, Kitty, do." 
 
 "Well, I will," said Kitty, with sudden determination, 
 looking down on the beautiful river — where there -was no 
 longer a boat visible with its single passenger — and think- 
 ing how glorious it would be in the moonlight and how she 
 really longed for a moonlight row, and what fun it would 
 be imagining herself a girl again. 
 
 "Kitty!" breathed Montclair rapturously, too overcome 
 by the good fortune he had hardly dared hope for to utter 
 another word. But he seized her hands again and kissed 
 them fervently, and this time Kitty did not resist so 
 strenuously. 
 
 "Mrs. Sutherland, Mr. Clay is looking for you to go to 
 dinner. May I take you to him?" 
 
 Montclair dropped Kitty's hands and sprang to his feet 
 with a muttered execration, and Kitty rose slowly to hers. 
 
 "If you please," said Kitty, looking up at Morland 
 defiantly. He was standing at the entrance of the locust 
 bower very straight and tall and looking very stem, but 
 also, Kitty confessed to herself, very handsome. He 
 
JOHN MORLAND 233 
 
 bowed his acknowledgment and offered Kitty his arm. 
 She took it with the tips of her fingers and tm-ned to walk 
 away. 
 
 Montclair had had time to recover himself. 
 
 "Au revoir, Mrs. Sutherland," he said, significantly. 
 
 Kitty hesitated a moment. Should she say "Au revoir," 
 or should she think better of it ? Involuntarily she glanced 
 up at Morland. He was frowning, impatient of her delay. 
 She turned to Montclair with great deliberation and, con- 
 scious that Morland was looking at her and listening to 
 her, said in her sweetest tones, with a radiant smile: 
 "Au revoir, Mr. Montclair." 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 Janet's prayer 
 
 MORLAND sat on the opposite side of the table from 
 Kitty, who had Mr. Clay on one side of her a,nd 
 young Robert Lee on the other. He was studiously atten- 
 tive to the charming young lady who sat beside him, and 
 the charming young lady began to believe that at last she 
 had made an impression on the most difficult and most 
 eligible bachelor in Washington. 
 
 There were moments, however, when he found it possible 
 to withdraw himself from the fascinations of the charming 
 young lady long enough to glance across the table at Kitty, 
 and he always found her at such moments overflowing 
 with good humour and high spirits, keeping both Clay 
 and young Lee fully engaged in meeting her quick sallies 
 or swift retorts, and keeping also her section of the long 
 table in shouts of responsive laughter. It grated on 
 Morland's imsympathetic mood. He had never before 
 found anything in Kitty to criticize as coarse or "loud;" 
 he had always found her charming, even when he least 
 approved of her; but now her voice seemed to him too 
 high-pitched, her manner too nervous and excitable, and 
 her ringing laugh entirely too noisy and too frequent for 
 good taste. 
 
 Besides these fleeting moments devoted to Kitty he had 
 also found one long minute, when the charming young 
 lady was absorbed in her canvas-back duck, to look off 
 
 334 
 
THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 235 
 
 over the river toward Washington where the Capitol on its 
 hill gleamed white in the east, and then toward the west 
 where the Potomac was coming down, a silver flood, 
 between the foothills of the Blue Ridge already purpling 
 in the evening light. The low clouds in the west were 
 beginning to flush a pale rose in the rays of the rapidly 
 sinking sun, and in the east, just above the Capitol dome, 
 hung the pale silver orb of the nearly full moon. Across 
 the lawns of Arlington the long shadows of late afternoon 
 were stretching; robins and meadow-larks were chirping 
 and caroling their evening songs, and from a grove behind 
 the house came at regular intervals the exquisite note of 
 a hermit thrush. Great bowls of lilacs and apple blossoms 
 from the shrubberies and orchards of Arlington decorated 
 the long tables, and Morland, whose eye and nostril and 
 ear were exquisitely attuned to all these sweet spring 
 influences, began to feel more at peace with himself and 
 consequently with Kitty. 
 
 Since finding her in the locust bower with Montclair he 
 had been in despair about her. He had promised himself, 
 when he plead press of business as an excuse for not keep- 
 ing his engagement with Kitty, that he would go over to 
 Arlington late, just in time for dinner; it could give rise 
 to no fresh gossip if he did not appear as Kitty's attendant 
 and, as he determined, showed her no special attention 
 while there. Coming over alone in his boat he had seen 
 the two figures high in their green bower on the bluff, and 
 although at that distance it was impossible to distinguish 
 them, he had guessed who it was likely to be, and a hasty 
 search for Montclair and Kitty on his arrival had revealed 
 their absence and confirmed his fears. 
 
 During that long dinner — a real Virginia feast with 
 
236 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 every delicacy, in season and out, smoking on the boards: 
 Canvas-back duck and terrapin, oysters and soft-shell 
 crabs, spring chicken and spicy hams, hot Maryland bis- 
 cuit and all the accompaniments of quivering jellies and 
 toothsome conserves, delicate syllabubs and rich and 
 wonderful cakes, with fragrant coffee and fine old Virginia 
 home-made wines — through it all Morland had been con- 
 scious of an undercurrent of thought that had nothing 
 whatever to do with the skilful parrying he found neces- 
 sary of his neighbour's veiled and open attacks. She was 
 making a "dead set" for him, and he must appear to enjoy 
 the process, while skilfully evading her snares. The 
 undercurrent was what really absorbed him. Was there 
 no hope for Kitty ? Was she determined on her own ruin 
 — social ruin, at least ? Was it his business any longer ? 
 Could he not consider that he had more than discharged 
 his promise to Sutherland? Perhaps he had been mis- 
 taken in Kitty; perhaps there was in her no substratum 
 of good sense and right feeling, whose existence he had 
 always claimed, and on which, as a foundation, he had 
 pertinaciously hoped to see the fine and noble character 
 erected that he believed was possible to Kitty. This last 
 was too much! That she should seize the opportunity that 
 his absence gave her, and then, when detected in wrong- 
 doing, should openly defy him, was more than he felt 
 himself called upon to submit to. He would give her up! 
 He was going away to Tennessee in a few days, and he 
 would leave her to her fate and worry no more about her. 
 
 But the nesting song of the birds, the delicious fragrance 
 of lilacs and apple blossoms, the soft evening air and the 
 lovely picture of the silver flood rolling down between 
 purple hills under rose-coloured skies, had their due effect; 
 
JOHN MORLAND 237 
 
 he could no longer quite despair of Kitty; he would give 
 her another trial. 
 
 He left it to the Clays to see her home, but he was in 
 Mrs. McCabe's parlour waiting for her when she arrived. 
 He was not ostensibly waiting for her. It was Janet's 
 bedtime, and it had come to be a custom of Morland's to 
 drop in at this hour to say good-night to her. In all these 
 months Janet and Morland had grown to be great friends. 
 He had come back in the fall to find her an enchanting 
 three-year-old, beautiful as a Greuze cherub and bubbling 
 over with baby prattle. The two had straightway fallen 
 desperately in love with each other, and it was due to 
 Janet that Morland had come to find his way so frequently 
 to Mrs. McCabe's parlour. Once there, Janet was 
 immediately enthroned upon his knee; her imperious 
 "Up, up!" was not to be resisted. Together the two 
 held long discourses on every topic in the wide range of a 
 baby's philosophy, from the reason why God made little 
 girls nicer than little boys (a theorem stated by Morland) 
 to the ineffable virtues of a headless and armless doll, 
 the dearest of Janet's large family of children. 
 
 Kitty was not a bad mother, as young mothers go. She 
 was passionately fond of her beautiful baby and inordi- 
 nately vain of her, but she gladly left her training to 
 the baby's grandmother. Most children have a natural 
 instinct for religion, but Mrs. McCabe had cultivated 
 Janet's by telling her Bible stories and teaching her little 
 prayers, until to the baby there was nothing more real on 
 earth than God and the angels. 
 
 Morland would not miss her evening prayers if he could 
 help it, for after the "Now I lay me" had been duly 
 lisped, Janet started off on a long rambling prayer of her 
 
238 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 own, neglecting no human being of her acquaintance, and 
 interspersing her petitions with numerous confidential 
 asides to God himself, or sometimes to Morland or her 
 grandmother about God. She was waiting now for 
 mamma to come home to kiss her good-night and listen to 
 her prayers, for Janet adored her beautiful young mother, 
 and would have gone to bed sorrowful without that good- 
 night kiss. It was growing a late bedtime, and Emmeline 
 had come in to take her upstairs, but Mrs. McCabe would 
 not send her away until her mother came. In the mean- 
 time Janet was very happy on Morland's knee listening to 
 tales of the party, and asking a thousand questions. 
 "And was my mamma there too?" "And did she wear a 
 pwetty dress ?" "And was my mamma very, very boosul ?" 
 "And was my papa there too?" "Why was n't my papa 
 there?" "Will the big ship bring him home some 
 day?" "Does my mamma love my papa?" "Does she 
 love him better than she does you?" 
 
 Morland had answered every question with the gravity 
 they deserved, but he answered this last a little impatiently. 
 "Oh, yes, of course." "Why?" persisted Janet gravely. 
 "Why, because he 's your papa," said Morland, wonder- 
 ing a little what Janet 's line of reasoning could be. 
 
 " Do I love my papa better 'n I do you ? " But she did 
 not wait for Morland to answer this; she answered it her- 
 self. "Oh, yes, 'course I do, 'cause he 's my papa." 
 
 Kitty, who had just come in, had stopped on the thres- 
 hold and heard these last questions. She entered the 
 room now with heightened colour and, without noticing 
 Morland, spoke to Janet a little sharply. "Come, Janet, 
 it 's time you were in bed." 
 
 Neither Janet nor Morland had seen her until she spoke, 
 
JOHN MORLAND 239 
 
 since Morland's back was to the door. At the sound of 
 her voice Janet sprang to her mother's arms with a cry of 
 dehght. " Mamma 's home! Mamma 's home I Will you 
 tell me a story, mamma?" 
 
 "Not to-night, Janet; mother 's going right out 
 again," said Kitty, but without the sharpness of her 
 first speech. 
 
 "Going out!" exclaimed Mrs. McCabe in surprise, 
 "Where are you going, Kitty?" 
 
 Kitty knew very well how thoroughly both her mother 
 and Morland would disapprove. She was always tender 
 of her mother. She could not bear to hurt her or to have 
 her disapprove of her, and but for Morland's presence she 
 might have relented and given up a plan that she knew 
 would hurt her a little more keenly than anything she had 
 yet done. But her first thought on seeing Morland was 
 that he was there on purpose to try to prevent her going 
 with Montclair, and she would prove to him that she was 
 her own mistress. Of course, Morland was there for no 
 such purpose, for he had had no hint of Montclair's 
 invitation until this moment, when he instantly suspected 
 it was with Montclair she was going out. Kitty looked at 
 Morland instead of her mother, as she replied and mea- 
 sured each word with cold precision : 
 
 "I am going out for a moonlight row with Mr. Mont- 
 clair on Rock Creek; he will call for me in a few 
 minutes." 
 
 Morland felt himself turn cold under Kitty's steady look 
 of defiance. This was going a step farther than Kitty 
 had yet gone. And he distrusted Montclair so thoroughly I 
 He did not reply; the words were not addressed to him, but 
 he returned her look with one of strong remonstrance and 
 
240 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 displeasure, and Kitty quailed a little. It was her mother 
 who spoke, but all she said was: 
 
 "Oh, Kitty! don't go!" 
 
 "Why not?" said Kitty, still coldly. 
 
 "Oh, you know why not," returned her mother in 
 agonized entreaty. "Major Morland, beg her not to go." 
 
 It was a terrible mistake to appeal to him, and Mor- 
 land knew it. He would do his best to retrieve Mrs. 
 McCabe's error. 
 
 "Mrs. Sutherland must decide for herself in such 
 matters," he said coldly. "She knows the wishes of her 
 friends, I think." 
 
 Kitty turned on him passionately: 
 
 "Yes, I know every one tries to control me as if I were 
 a child, and to say what I must do and must not do. I 
 am tired of it! Hereafter I shall please myself; and it 
 pleases me on this beautiful moonlight night to go for a 
 little row on the river with my friend, Mr. Montclair." 
 
 And, then turning to Janet, who had been clinging to her 
 hand through this brief altercation, looking with wide eyes 
 of wonder and fear and sorrow from one to the other of 
 the three people she loved best: 
 
 "Come, Janet," she said, "we must go upstairs; it is 
 time you were in bed." 
 
 But, for the first time in her life, Janet was afraid of this 
 beautiful mamma. She had never before seen her eyes 
 flash like that, and she had never heard that strange, sharp 
 ring in her voice. She let go of her mother's hand and ran 
 to her grandmother. 
 
 "Oh, gwandma, I want to say my prayers!" she cried, 
 with quivering lip. 
 
 Kitty had felt that Janet fled from her to a refuge with 
 
JOHN MORLAND 241 
 
 her mother and she had seen the quivering lip. Both 
 had cut her to the heart. Mrs. McCabe looked up at Kitty, 
 questioningly; she did not want to seem to come between 
 mother and child. Kitty was not going to show that she 
 was moved; with a slight nod to her mother she spoke to 
 Janet coldly: 
 
 "Very well, Janet, I will wait." 
 
 Down sank Janet at her grandmother's knee, her little 
 white dress and golden curls and folded hands and eyes 
 tight-closed, looking like an angel to Kitty, who was begin- 
 ning to feel the stings of remorse. Janet's little heart was 
 full, and she said her "Now I lay me" after her grand- 
 mother with trembling lips, but as she went on to her own 
 unaided prayers she forgot her grief in the earnestness of 
 her petitions : 
 
 "Dear God," she said, "Bwess my boosul mamma, and 
 don't ever, ever let her be naughty, and don't let her scold 
 gwandma and Uncle Morland. And, pease, dear God, 
 bwing my papa home. I want to see my papa, God, 'cause 
 he loves me and loves mamma, and 'cause mamma loves 
 him better 'n anybody. And pease God make my 
 mamma happy, and never, never, never let her cry. And 
 make me good, so my mamma '11 love me some more. 
 Amen, for Christ's sake." 
 
 She started to get up, but shut her eyes again and folded 
 her hands. "Oh, yes, God, I sordot" (Janet's /'* were 
 always s's). "Bwess Em'line, and Uncle Morland and 
 Gwanpa and Gwandma and my dear, dear boosul mamma, 
 and don't her let be naughty. And make me dweam 'bout 
 the angels and the sairies, and pease bwing my papa home 
 in a big, big boat. Amen." 
 
 She was quite happy by the time she had finished her 
 
242 THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 
 
 prayer, and kissed her grandmother radiantly, who hid her 
 face when she returned her kiss that Janet might not see 
 her tears; and then she turned to "Uncle Morland," who 
 hugged her so tight, he almost took her breath; and then 
 she ran to her mother. 
 
 Through Janet's prayer Kitty had stood at first with 
 bowed head. Janet's trembling tones and her own 
 remorse were almost too much for her. But as the child 
 went on to pray for her "boosul mamma" and her absent 
 father, Kitty summoned all her powers of resistance and 
 hardened her heart. She was not going to let her mother 
 and Major Morland think that she could be so easily 
 moved from her determination. She had an unreasoning 
 feeling that Major Morland had set the child on to persuade 
 her from her course. And so, though there were tears 
 in her eyes, angry tears, Kitty would have called them, she 
 flung back her head defiantly as Janet rose from her knees, 
 snatched her impatiently from Morland's arms, and spoke 
 sharply: 
 
 " Come, Janet! I can't wait here all night! Mr. Mont- 
 clair will be here before I am ready for him!" 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 MORLAND BUYS A HORSE 
 
 AT THE very hour when Janet was praying in the little 
 -^*- parlour of McCabe's Tavern, " Bring my papa home 
 in a big boat, " a great ship was ~ entering New York har- 
 bour bearing to Kitty awful tidings of the father for whom 
 Janet had prayed. 
 
 He would never come home to Janet or to Janet's 
 mother. In a fit of depression after a week of harder 
 drinking even than usual, despairing of ever breaking loose 
 from the chains that were daily binding him closer, he sat 
 down in his cabin on the Argus, wrote a note to Kitty, and 
 blew out his brains. 
 
 His note lay open on the table before which he 
 sat for all men to read, and in after years it almost 
 seemed as if that had been his intention — that for 
 Kitty's sake no man might mistake the motive for his self 
 destruction. 
 
 ,The note read: "Dear Kitty: It is no use. I am a 
 slave, bound hand and foot. I can never make you happy. 
 I will not live to keep you tied to such a hopeless wreck. 
 I cannot prove my love to you by stopping drinking. I will 
 prove it by setting you free. Think of me sometimes, 
 Kitty, and try to remember all the good things about me, 
 if there ever , were any to remember. But remember 
 always that I loved you dearly, dearly. Kiss our baby and 
 don't let her quite forget her father, nor ever know, if you 
 
 US 
 
244 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 can help it, how he came to his end. Good-bye, Kitty. 
 Good-bye, my wife. May God forgive me." 
 
 The river had flowed on swiftly and relentlessly, bearing 
 with it, as Sutherland in his gloomy prescience had fore- 
 felt, his frail, unruddered craft down to the great and 
 shoreless sea. 
 
 The note reached Washington on the very day Morland 
 was to set out for Tennessee. He could not leave Kitty in 
 such distress, and he stayed on day after day until the days 
 had run into weeks, trying in every unobtrusive way to help 
 her bear this terrible sorrow, and working over the papers 
 and effects that had come from the Argus with Sutherland's 
 note, in an effort to straighten them out, if possible, and 
 be able to give Kitty a clear account of how her husband's 
 affairs stood. 
 
 There was not much left for her when everything was 
 settled, but Kitty either did not care or did not realize how 
 unprovided for the future she and little Janet were. She 
 was stunned, at first, by the awful nature of the blow, and 
 when she could begin to realize it there was no room for 
 anything but heart-breaking sorrow. Every sin against 
 her was forgotten; she could only remember the husband 
 of her bridal days when they thought themselves the 
 happiest two people in the world and life lay before them, 
 a long, rose-strewn path glowing with hope and love. 
 
 Of tenest of all her memories she dwelt upon that ride up 
 the winding road to Kalorama under sunset skies. It was 
 the last of her absolutely unalloyed memories and for that 
 reason, without doubt, the most vivid. 
 
 It was a strange thing in Kitty, and one that Morland 
 soon discovered, that in all her sorrow there was mingled 
 no remorse. He had been fancying that the bitterest pang 
 
JOHN MORLAND 245 
 
 in her overwhelming grief would be that she must often 
 accuse herself of having been faithless, in thought, at least, 
 to her husband. When it was first made clear to him that 
 Kitty had no such accusations to make against herself he 
 could not, for a time, understand it, and he began to fear 
 that Kitty must be as heartless as she was often charged 
 with being. But he came later to take a different view of 
 this apparent moral obtuseness: he came to believe that 
 Kitty did not accuse herself of having been faithless, even 
 in thought, for the simple reason that she never had been 
 faithless. All her apparent infatuation with Montclair 
 was explained to him now as merely a surface attempt of 
 Kitty's to try to amuse herself into an oblivion of Suther- 
 land's untrustworthiness. It was the instinctive struggle 
 of a dumb soul after life and breath — a frantic beating of 
 the waves to keep herself afloat lest she sink under the 
 sluggish waters and perish. 
 
 The nearest approach Kitty ever made to expressing any 
 regret for the past was one evening when they were all 
 together in Mrs. McCabe's room and Janet was saying 
 her prayers to her grandmother. Kitty turned to Morland 
 and said in a low undertone that could not reach Janet: 
 
 " Oh, if I had only not gone rowing with Mr. Montclair 
 that night!" 
 
 Morland had no response to make. It had been a bitter 
 disappointment to him that Kitty had not been more moved 
 by Janet. He had felt at the time, having such a dislike 
 and distrust of Montclair, that she was, to say the very 
 least, doing a dreadfully imprudent thing. It had been 
 late when she returned — he had listened anxiously until 
 he had heard her voice bidding Montclair good-night — 
 but he could only hope that it was but a bit of wilful 
 
246 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 defiance on Kitty's part — a childish effort to assert her 
 independence, and her genuine grief over her husband's 
 death confirmed that view. But there was such exagger- 
 ated remorse in Kitty's tones now that a startled suspicion 
 presented itself to him, and he could not forbear looking 
 up quickly and questioningly. 
 
 Kitty did not understand his look, but she answered the 
 question in it. 
 
 "I was trying to be so gay and careless, and he had been 
 three weeks dead. Oh, it is terrible! And I did not want 
 to go; I was in an ugly mood, and I went because I thought 
 it would worry you and mother." 
 
 Morland's relief was so sudden and so great that he 
 almost answered with a smile, and from that moment he 
 no longer doubted that Kitty had no occasion for remorse. 
 
 By the time Morland had straightened out Kitty's 
 affairs sufficiently to allow him to think of going to 
 Tennessee it was nearing June. The Sutherlands, heart- 
 broken over the death of their only son, and most of all 
 over the terrible manner of it, had begged Kitty and Janet 
 once more to spend the summer with them on the James- 
 town plantation ; and since Kitty, made very tender toward 
 her mother by this sorrow, dreaded leaving her, as much for 
 the loneliness her mother would feel as for the loss of her 
 supporting love and sympathy, Mrs. McCabe was included 
 in the invitation. It seemed an ideal arrangement to 
 Morland, and he set off on his long ride to Tennessee with 
 less concern for Kitty than he had felt for many years in 
 starting on that familiar journey. Kitty in her heavy 
 widow's weeds, the laughter of her merry Irish eyes 
 drenched in tears, seemed to him a Kitty for whom he could 
 feel a gentle pity and tender sympathy, but for whom he 
 
JOHN MORLAND 247 
 
 need suffer none of the poignant anxiety that had some- 
 times assailed him for her in the lonely mountain passes. 
 
 He could not take that ride through these mountain 
 passes in the lovely late May and early June, with no one to 
 talk to but Jeff, without spending many hours in long 
 thoughts of Kitty. All the mountains were a-bloom. 
 Masses of pink and white laurel flushed the hoary crests 
 of the hills, the brilliant white of dogwood starred the green 
 of open forest glades, and wild honeysuckle and wild rose 
 threw their blushing garlands over every gray rock and 
 brown, decaying stump. The world was in bridal array 
 and small wonder if the heart of this man, held strongly 
 in leash for years, stirred and throbbed in response to 
 nature's mood. Yet he did not consciously yield to these 
 stirrings. Kitty in her young widowhood seemed to him 
 as sacred and almost as remote as Kitty in her wifehood. 
 Sometimes there flashed for a moment before his spiritual 
 vision a distant future with a great happiness in store for 
 him, but he never gave that happiness a name nor let his 
 thoughts dwell definitely upon it. 
 
 On his long-delayed arrival in Tennessee he found him- 
 self plunged at once into such a vortex of campaign work as 
 admitted no intrusive dreams to lure him from his tasks. 
 That was the summer when the network of wires so cun- 
 ningly laid by the master hand of Van Buren — Burr's 
 great pupil — set in motion the tremendous political forces 
 of the second Jackson campaign that swept the chieftain 
 resistlessly on to his triumph in November. 
 
 Van Buren was the general in command of these forces, 
 but he had a tireless aide-de-camp in Morland. In the 
 very prime of his young manhood, full of honourable 
 ambitions for himself, but animated far more by love and 
 
248 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 devotion to the old chieftain than by any personal desires, 
 the latter proved himself the strong right arm of the 
 movement. He spent the summer of 1828 in the saddle. 
 Riding from Nashville to New York, and missing on his 
 way no political centre of importance, he planned, devised, 
 and executed with wonderful skill and swiftness. 
 
 He had returned to Washington barely in time for "the 
 opening of Congress, and he had never come back in such 
 high spirits or looked forward to his return to his home at 
 Mrs. McCabe's with such a quickening pulse. Jackson 
 was elected, there was no question of it this time, but that 
 alone could not account for the elation that sent the blood 
 racing through his veins as he drew up before the door of 
 McCabe's. As usual he came unannounced, and at 
 an hour when the dining-room was almost deserted, though 
 Tim was there to give him his usual sonorous greeting 
 and to insist that he should go at once to Mrs. McCabe's 
 parlour. But this Morland absolutely refused to do. His 
 room was always waiting for him, and he would go to it 
 and make himself presentable to appear before the ladies. 
 
 Jeff never found his master more difficult to please in 
 matters of neck ruffles and boots, waistcoats and hair 
 parting. Morland actually fumed and fussed at the 
 last when, owing to his state of excitement, Jeff's fingers 
 became more and more thumby. Yet it was apparently a 
 very cool and stately young Senator who presented himself 
 finally in Mrs. McCabe's parlour. 
 
 There he was doomed to the pangs of hope deferred. 
 Mrs. McCabe was there, greeting him with, if possible, 
 even more than her old-time sweetness and cordiality, for 
 with every returning year Morland had seemed more and 
 more like one of the family. And Janet was there, grown 
 
JOHN MORLAND 249 
 
 ravishingly and angelically beautiful in the six months of 
 Morland's absence. She regarded him for a moment with 
 wide, wondering eyes, and then a radiant smile of recogni- 
 tion lighted up her baby face and she ran to him with 
 outstretched arms crying ecstatically, "Uncle Morland! 
 Uncle Morland!" 
 
 He felt all the warmth his manner expressed in returning 
 the greetings of both, but he was disappointed. Where 
 was Kitty ? Moreover he was too self-conscious to make 
 the very natural inquiries for her that might have been 
 expected, and Mrs. McCabe did not volunteer any explana- 
 tion of her absence. 
 
 But Janet, enthroned upon his knee, was pretty sure 
 to give him all possible information on every possible 
 topic if only allowed the freedom of her tongue which was 
 now wagging at both ends, being an organ very delicately 
 balanced in the middle. She began almost immediately 
 with her most important piece of news : 
 
 "My papa's in heaven. I 'm going to heaven some 
 day. I think I'll go to-morrow" — head on one side 
 and lips drawn tight together in the attitude of consider- 
 ing whether it should be to-morrow or some other day. 
 "Heaven 's a boosul place. God lives up there." 
 
 In the act of lifting her eyes toward heaven she 
 discovered a crack in the ceiling plaster. 
 
 "Oh," ecstatically, and pointing a chubby finger 
 upward, "God made that crack to look through and see 
 us. He sees us all the time. My mamma says so." 
 
 Now it pleased Morland greatly to learn from the 
 baby's artless prattle that Kitty had taken to talking to her 
 of God and heaven. To Morland it argued that Kitty's 
 own heart, in her sorrow, had turned to heavenly things. 
 
250 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 Especially it pleased him that, as he divined from the 
 child's prattle, she had been in the habit of talking to her 
 of her father; teaching her, no doubt, to love him and to 
 honour his memory. Moreover, the child's references to 
 her mother gave Morland a chance to make his inquiry 
 naturally. 
 
 "Where is mamma?" he said. 
 
 "Oh, my mamma's riding on a great, great, big horse," 
 Janet answered impressively, and at that moment caught 
 sight of her mother through the window. 
 
 "There's my mamma! There's my mamma!" she 
 cried excitedly, and slipping from Morland 's knee, seized 
 his hand. "Come, come quick and see my mamma on 
 the big horse." 
 
 Morland let the child lead him through the dining- 
 hall to the door, quite willing to go to meet Kitty and help 
 her from her horse. It had not occurred to him that there 
 could be any one with her and he strode quickly along to 
 keep pace with the child's dancing steps. But in the 
 doorway he stopped, and Janet tugged at his hand to draw 
 him further in vain. 
 
 He had never seen Kitty on a horse before, and his first 
 swift glance at her assured him that he had never before 
 seen her to such advantage. She was riding a high-strung 
 chestnut mare who objected evidently to being brought up 
 to the horse-block. Kitty's firm seat on the prancing horse 
 and her light hand on the bridle jcontrolling the excited 
 animal, all her beautiful curves fully displayed in the close- 
 fitting habit, the bright halo of ringlets that the motion of 
 her ride had set free about her face, the glowing, dark- 
 fringed eyes and the heightened colour of her cheek, partly 
 due to the exercise and partly to the effort required in con- 
 
JOHN MORLAND 251 
 
 trolling the mare, all made a dazzling vision in Morland's 
 first swift glance. But his second had gone beyond Kitty 
 to the man at her side. And the man at her side was 
 Montclair! 
 
 In a moment all the joy of Morland's home-coming — 
 for so he had phrased it to himself — was turned to bitter- 
 ness. This man was to be always wormwood in his cup. 
 There was no real reason why Kitty should not now ride 
 with Montclair if she wanted too, he said to himself; but 
 he had been thinking of her in the depths of a consuming 
 grief, cherishing tenderly the memory of her unhappy 
 husband, and it was a rude awakening to find that she had 
 so soon taken up the threads of this affair with Montclair 
 where she had dropped them at her husband's death. 
 
 He did not know that, framed in the doorway, Janet 
 clinging to his hand, he was making in a way as striking a 
 picture as Kitty on her spirited horse. But Kitty knew 
 it. She stole more than one glance at him from under her 
 long lashes while pretending to be so engaged as not to 
 have seen him. He stood facing the low afternoon sun of 
 winter and its cold, hard glare brought out into brilliant 
 relief the lines of his erect, well-knit figure and strong face, 
 the vivid colouring of his long blue coat, gilt buttons and 
 snowy neck-cloth, the crisp waves of brown hair, the good 
 red blood showing under the bronzed skin, the deep blue 
 of his honest eyes at this moment looking with cold dis- 
 pleasure at Kitty and Montclair. 
 
 Not a line, not a tint, not a fleeting change of expression 
 was lost on Kitty, but she only made her mare prance and 
 curvet the more until Morland began to think she was 
 really becoming unmanageable and it was time for him to 
 go to Kitty's assistance. But at his first movement for- 
 
252 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 ward Kitty brought the animal down quietly to the horse- 
 block and with a great show of surprise seemed for the first 
 time to recognize Morland. She leaned forward from her 
 horse, drew off her riding gauntlet and graciously extended 
 her hand. If Morland had had any idea of taking her to 
 task for any breach of decorum he dismissed it at that 
 moment. Kitty had "placed" him and he submitted. 
 Seeing which, she very graciously permitted him to assist 
 her to alight and, having with effusive cordiality dismissed 
 Montclair, she turned and accompanied Morland and 
 Janet into the house. 
 
 "That was a fine animal you were riding," Morland said 
 as they walked along together, trying to make conversation 
 since he found himself curiously embarrassed, "Mr, 
 Montclair seems to have a good eye for horse-flesh." 
 
 " Oh, she does not belong to Mr. Montclair," said Kitty 
 carelessly; "she belongs to the Senseman stables. But 
 I have ridden her a number of times and I like her 
 extremely." 
 
 "Do you ride frequently?" Morland asked, trying to 
 control his unruly pulses. 
 
 "Not as frequently as I should like to. Some day I 
 shall have a horse of my own, I hope, and ride to my heart's 
 content." 
 
 "Does she mean that some day she will marry Montclair 
 and so have all the riding she wants ? " Morland asked 
 himself, and grew a shade colder and statelier in his 
 manner. 
 
 He had not once called her "Kitty," and Kitty had 
 noticed that he had not. She had taken the control of the 
 situation at the moment of their meeting, but she was con- 
 trolling it almost too perfectly to please herself. Morland 
 
JOHN MORLAND 253 
 
 was now devoting all his attention to Janet who, still cling- 
 ing to his hand, was dancing along beside him, and 
 very soon after their return to Mrs. McCabe's room the 
 clang of the great gong, beaten by a stalwart Negro, 
 announced dinner, and he was not sorry for the excuse it 
 gave him for withdrawing. 
 
 Alone in his room after dinner he paced his floor back 
 and forth trying to come to some conclusion about Kitty. 
 It seemed to him not wise that Montclair should be left 
 to work out his designs without let or hindrance. He 
 would not own, even to himself, that with Kitty only a 
 seven-months' widow he had any designs of his own. 
 But on one thing he was quite resolved: it would not be 
 good for Kitty to marry Montclair, and since she had 
 already broken the seclusion of her mourning by appearing 
 in public with this man it could do no harm to appear with 
 him also. He sat down and wrote her a note, and because 
 he would not call her Kitty and could not bring himself 
 to call her Mrs. Sutherland in direct discourse, he wrote it 
 in the formal third person: 
 
 " Mr. Morland's compliments and he hopes Mrs. Suther- 
 land will do him the honour of riding with him to-morrow 
 at three. She shall have Senseman's mare to ride on." 
 
 As it was not late, he dispatched his note at once by Jeff 
 and awaited the answer with some impatience. It came 
 in as brief a space of time as could well be expected and 
 was also in the third person: 
 
 "Mrs. Sutherland's compliments to Major Morland. 
 She regrets exceedingly that she has an engagement for 
 to-morrow afternoon." 
 
 " It shall not be with the Senseman mare," said Morland 
 to himself, and picking up his hat he went down at once to 
 
254 THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 
 
 the Senseman stables, where, with less bickering and 
 fewer investigations as to pedigree than were usual with 
 him in buying a horse, he bought the mare that Kitty 
 loved — for a good round sum — and had her sent down 
 that night to the stable where he kept his own horses. 
 
 "That may seem to Kitty like a small piece of spite," 
 Morland mused when the transaction was completed, 
 " but, if I know myself, spite has nothing to do with it. I 
 am merely trying to insure against her rides with Mont- 
 clair proving too attractive through the chestnut mare, 
 and to secure for myself an attraction that may induce her 
 to ride with me occasionally. It shall be hers to ride when- 
 ever she wants it, with or without me, and I shall tell 
 her so — only I must find some means of making her 
 understand that she is not to take my mare to ride with 
 Montclair." 
 
 " And how under the canopy am I to tell her that without 
 bringing a hornets' nest about my ears!" he said aloud, 
 with a reminiscent shrug. "She 's a little vixen at times, 
 but :ust the same 'God bless her!'" 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A TRIFLE LIGHT AS AIR 
 
 JOHN MORLAND would have scorned to seem to 
 *^ be spying upon Kitty and Montclair, and much more 
 would he have scorned to be actually spying upon them, 
 with or without seeming; yet a trifling accident put him 
 into a position where he could neither help the spying 
 nor avoid the appearance of it. 
 
 Sitting at his desk in the Senate -chamber he sud- 
 denly discovered that he had left in his room at McCabe's 
 some papers that were of vital importance to the ques- 
 tion under discussion. He could not send a page for them, 
 since they were locked up with other valuable papers 
 to which he permitted no access by anyone. It was but 
 a five-minutes' walk from the Capitol to McCabe's — he 
 would go for them himself. 
 
 Had he remembered that engagement of Kitty's he 
 would have still felt compelled to go for them, trusting that 
 he might not happen to hit upon the exact minute of 
 Montclair's arrival. But, for the moment, he had not 
 remembered it, and it came upon him as a shock to 
 find Montclair standing before the door of McCabe's 
 holding by the bridles two horses, neither of which was 
 Senseman's mare. There was nothing to do but to 
 hurry by him with the slight nod which was all he 
 usually accorded Montclair, hoping that he might escape 
 to his own room without meeting Kitty, and fully 
 
 255 
 
256 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 determined to remain there until the two should have 
 set off upon their ride. 
 
 But luck was against him — or for him, Montclair 
 would have said. He had not yet reached the stoop, nor 
 yet been discovered by Montclair, when Kitty appeared in 
 the doorway, looking to Morland's jealous eyes a little 
 more ravishing even than usual, as if by some conscious 
 art she had willed to make herself more beautiful for Mont- 
 clair than for others. But the radiant smile that fell upon 
 Montclair was a fleeting one. 
 
 "Where is my mare?" she asked imperiously, a quick 
 frown darkening her smiling eyes. 
 
 "I could not get her," Montclair answered depreca- 
 tingly. "Mr. Senseman has sold her." 
 
 "Sold her!" Wrath was gathering in Kitty's eyes and 
 voice and Montclair visibly quailed under it. "It seems 
 to me, Mr. Montclair, that might have been prevented. If 
 the mare was for sale why did you not buy her ? " 
 
 "Indeed, Kitty," Morland winced at Montclair's 
 familiar use of her name, "I had no idea the mare was 
 for sale, or I would have bought her gladly. But Mr. 
 Senseman assures me," he went on hurriedly, hoping to 
 avert the storm he saw impending, " that this one is quite 
 as good. Will you not try her? And if you like her I 
 will buy her and so insure your always having her." 
 
 "Thank you, no," said Kitty with superb hauteur. 
 "You promised me a ride on Brown Bess. When you 
 come back with her I will ride with you, but not until 
 then. Good afternoon, Mr. Montclair," and Kitty turned 
 and swept into the house, her long riding-skirt trailing 
 behind her and adding inches to her height and stateliness 
 to her manner. 
 
JOHN MORLAND 257 
 
 The little altercation had lasted scarcely more than a 
 minute, a minute which Morland had occupied in retarding 
 his steps, since he could neither beat an undignified retreat 
 nor stand still with the appearance of listening. He 
 would have been hardly mortal if Kitty's mariner of taking 
 Brown Bess's defection had not given him secret joy, but 
 it was with an absolutely impassive face that he put his 
 foot on the first step of the stoop and with a cool " Good 
 afternoon, Mr. Montclair," started to enter the house. 
 
 But Montclair stopped him. He saw at once that 
 Morland had been witness to his discomfiture and morti- 
 fication added fuel to his wrath. 
 
 "Senator Morland," he said, in a white rage, "do you 
 know who bought Senseman's mare. Brown Bess?" 
 
 Morland turned and bestowed upon him an astonished 
 stare. 
 
 "I know of no right you have, Mr. Montclair," he said, 
 coldly, "to put me on the witness stand. I am in haste 
 to return to the Capitol, and you will excuse me from 
 stopping to discuss with you any question, since there can 
 be none between you and me of mutual interest or 
 importance." 
 
 He gave Montclair no chance to reply, but turning on his 
 heel, without accelerating his pace, entered the dining- 
 room and crossed to the staircase on the other side which 
 led to his rooms. As he mounted the stairs he heard the 
 keen swish of a quirt and the hurried clatter of hoofs, 
 and at the sound he permitted himself a grim smile. 
 
 His little scheme had turned out better than his hopes, 
 yet it was not without some misgivings that he met Kitty 
 that evening in her mother's parlour, fully determined to 
 let her know that he had been the purchaser of Brown Bess. 
 
258 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 It would be quite like Kitty to uncork the vials of her wrath 
 upon him also, and he schooled himself to meet it with a 
 brave front. 
 
 He found Kitty and Janet in a great romp. Janet was 
 hiding, always in plain sight, and Kitty was hunting for 
 her with great pretence of the impossibility of finding her, 
 until at Janet's repeated, "Here I am mamma," she turned 
 upon her with noisy exclamations of smprise and delighted 
 shouts of laughter from Janet at being found. Mrs. 
 McCabe and Morland sat by and watched the pretty play 
 until Emmeline came and Janet's prayers were said and 
 Janet carried off to bed, still gurgling sleepily over the 
 joys of "Hide and Seek." 
 
 Morland seized the first moment after they had settled 
 quietly and cosily to talking. 
 
 "Kitty," he said, "I bought something yesterday that I 
 hope you will like." 
 
 "For me?" said Kitty, looking up with something of 
 the pleased expression of a child expecting a new toy. 
 
 "Yes, virtually for you. I bought Brown Bess because 
 you seemed to like her so much, and she is to be yours 
 to ride whenever you want her, on one condition." 
 
 "Brown Bess!" was Kitty's first delighted exclamation, 
 but it was quickly followed by an imperious: "Conditionl 
 I do not like conditions, sir." 
 
 "No, I suppose not," said Morland coolly. "No one 
 does. Neither do I like to make them, but this time I 
 felt compelled to. Brown Bess is yours, as I said, to 
 ride whenever you want her, and you can have Jeff 
 to go with you when you like; but when you ride 
 Brown Bess you are not to permit any gentleman to 
 ride with you." 
 
JOHN MORLAND 259 
 
 "Except Brown Bess's owner, I suppose?" said Kitty 
 quickly and scornfully. 
 
 "Certainly. Brown Bess's owner will always be the 
 exception," said Morland, still coolly. "If any other 
 man wants to invite you to ride he can furnish his 
 own horses. Will you ride with me to-morrow after- 
 noon, Kitty?" 
 
 " No, I thank you," disdainfully. " I think I would prefer 
 riding with Jeff." 
 
 " Very well. Jeff is at your service. At what hour shall 
 I tell him to have the horses ready ? " 
 
 He spoke quietly, but he could not prevent a slightly 
 heightened colour, and Kitty saw it and relented. 
 
 "Oh, well," she said pettishly, for she would not yield 
 gracefully, " I suppose I might as well go with you. Can 
 you get off by three?" 
 
 " I can," said Morland, with brief courtesy, for he was 
 nettled. Kitty managed to steal all the joy out of every 
 pleasure, he said to himself bitterly, though on second 
 thought he concluded that he ought to be grateful for get- 
 ting off so easily. She had not taken his head off as he had 
 more than half expected her to do. 
 
 He hardly knew whether the sensation he experienced in 
 looking forward to his ride the next afternoon was 
 delight or misgiving, but Kitty appearing all smiles and 
 sweetness quickly banished every fear. She had added 
 a drooping ostrich plume to her little black riding hat, and 
 it mingled bewitchingly with her chestnut curls and shaded 
 and softened her dancing gray eyes in such fashion as 
 left Morland completely defenceless. His foolish heart 
 gave one exultant beat — " Did she do that for me ? " 
 Then he sobered himself with the thought that Kitty was a 
 
260 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 born coquette and she would have done the same for any 
 man — certainly as much, or more, for Montclair. 
 
 It was a still day in early December, with a soft haze 
 lying on the hills and the sound of dropping nuts and 
 gently rustling leaves in the golden wood where the fall 
 had lingered late and the winter tarried in coming that 
 year. Kitty led the way and led it first down the 
 Avenue — no one in Washington had ever seen Morland 
 riding with a lady, she should not hide him away 
 from the eyes of envious belles. But they soon left 
 the Avenue and crossed the stone bridge over Goose 
 Creek and then through the ford at Rock Creek; 
 though the rushing little stream of April was now 
 such a tiny thread it could have been easily forded 
 at any point. They turned to follow a path that led 
 along its winding banks through the woods, just at that 
 enchanting spot that in the spring was always carpeted 
 with purple violets — an open forest glade carpeted now 
 with pure gold from the fallen leaves of spreading chestnuts 
 and hickories. It was a spot strongly associated in 
 Kitty's mind with two of the marked days of her life. 
 The second one of those two days was one of her most 
 vivid memories of Sutherland, and at the remembrance all 
 Kitty's little coquetries fell away from her. 
 
 "I love this spot," said Kitty, fervently, "let's stop 
 here a little while, can't we ?" 
 
 It pleased Morland that she should propose it, and he 
 lifted her from Brown Bess, tied the two horses to a tree 
 at a little distance, and raked together a mound of golden 
 leaves for a seat under a magnificent chestnut. Kitty's 
 mood seemed to be in tune with the gentle melancholy of 
 the day. Heavy frosts had opened the brown burrs 
 
JOHN MORLAND 261 
 
 scattered in a great circle around them and Morland piled 
 Kitty's lap with the glossy nuts and together they watched 
 the little squirrels, bright-eyed and fearless, whiskmg 
 them away almost from under their very hands and 
 evidently keeping covetous eyes on Kitty's hoard. 
 
 "I could almost wish I were a squirrel," said Kitty with 
 a little sigh. 
 
 "Why?" asked Morland, wondering what Kitty's sigh 
 could mean. 
 
 "Oh, it is such a happy, careless life, no one to blame 
 or criticize. No heart to suffer with, and no conscience 
 to upbraid, but just to frisk all summer through the green 
 boughs and gather a hoard of nuts in the fall to keep them 
 in their cosy nests through the winter. I wish I were a 
 squirrel!" 
 
 Morland did not reply for a moment; he was wondering 
 what he should say, and Kitty went on, more bitterly: 
 
 "It hardly seems fair that of all God's created beings 
 only men and women should be bom to unhappiness. I 
 needed so little to make me so happy. If only Will had 
 been always what he was when we were first married no 
 one in the world would have been happier than I, and I 
 believe I could have been a model wife." 
 
 "Yes, I know, Kitty," said Morland, with genuine 
 sympathy, " it seems hard. And it was harder for Will 
 than for you. He wanted to do right; and think of his 
 despair at the last." 
 
 " Oh, I know, I know ! " Kitty was in an agony of grief. 
 "God has no right to make a man like Will. He never 
 wanted to do wrong. He was so gay and brave and lov- 
 able when he was himself, but he was so weak. Oh, how 
 could a good God make a man like that ? I tell Janet that 
 
262 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 her father is in heaven, and that if she is good some 
 day she will go to heaven and see him; but if all the 
 Church teaches me is true, I am telling Janet lies; he Is 
 not in heaven, he is suffering torments of which I cannot 
 have the faintest conception, and I am carelessly going 
 about in the sunshiny world doing all the things we used 
 to do together, and trying with all my might to harden 
 my heart and forget him. It is n't fair! It is n't fair! " 
 
 Kitty was in a torrent of tears by this time, but it was 
 a mood Morland liked so much better than the one she 
 herself called "careless and hard hearted," and the 
 only one he had seen since his return, that he would not 
 try to stop her. He waited until she had grown quieter 
 arid then he said: 
 
 "Sometimes I think, Kitty, we saddle God with a great 
 deal that does not belong to him. Having created us 
 in his own image and made us "gods" like unto Himself, 
 and endowed us with the power of good and evil, He has 
 placed us beyond even His own control. He has given us 
 infinite capacities. There is no limit to the heights we 
 may reach or the depths to which we may sink, and if we 
 fall, instead of rise, we have no right to blame Him with our 
 failure." 
 
 It was a thought on which Morland had dwelt much 
 but of which he had never before spoken. His relations 
 to God seemed to him too sacred for common discussion. 
 They were as little to be talked about as his relations to 
 the woman he loved — if he should ever love a woman. 
 Something of the ardour of his feeling was communicated 
 to eye and voice, and Kitty's attention was arrested and 
 for a moment she, too, thrilled with a sense of her own 
 infinity: of the measureless heights to which she might 
 
JOHN MORLAND 263 
 
 rise if she but willed it. But only for a moment; the 
 thought of her husband came back with a returning wave 
 of bitterness. 
 
 "You only make it the harder for poor Will," she 
 said angrily. "If he alone is to be responsible for his 
 sins, then there is no hope for him in any hereafter, and 
 I shall tell Janet I have been telling her lies about her 
 father." 
 
 " I don't think so, Kitty," said Morland earnestly. " It 
 seems to me there is only one way we can understand God, 
 and that is by analogy. He is our Father. And just as a 
 father here loves most tenderly his weak and crippled 
 son who needs him most, so does He love His morally 
 weak and crippled child who needs Him most. I learned 
 to know Will before he went away and learned to love him. 
 If I could make allowance for his faults, how much more 
 can God, his Father." 
 
 They were both silent for a few moments. Kitty was 
 restlessly plunging her hand into the sea of golden leaves 
 about her and letting them sift down again through her 
 opened fingers, and Morland was watching her face. No 
 one had ever spoken so to Kitty before and she was awed 
 and frightened and comforted, all in one. She was 
 thinking, and thinking hard, for her. As for Morland he 
 had never spoken so to any one before, and he was half 
 afraid of the effect his words might have on Kitty, and half 
 ashamed to have so bared his soul to any human being. 
 Society knew him only as a handsome young man of the 
 world; men knew him as an ardent politician, upright 
 and of undoubted integrity, but wholly absorbed in party 
 and party schemes. What had induced him to so disclose 
 his inmost heart to this careless chit of a girl! 
 
264 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 He watched Kitty anxiously, therefore, and his face did 
 not clear until she looked up and spoke with a gentle- 
 ness and sweetness rare in her, but that had, on those 
 rare occasions when he had seen them in her, proved 
 irresistible. 
 
 "I hope you are right," she said with shining eyes. "I 
 am going to try to believe you are. If God is good he must 
 feel a great deal sorrier for poor Will than you or I do." 
 
 This was the Kitty Morland had always believed in. 
 This was the real Kitty, he said to himself. When 
 she should try him again and again, as he had no doubt 
 she would, with her superficiality and wilfulness, let him 
 but remember this hour. 
 
 Neither Morland nor Kitty cared to prolong this con- 
 versation. It was too intimate and too intense on 
 both sides. 
 
 "It's getting late," said Kitty, rising from her golden 
 nest. "We must be going if we are to finish our ride to 
 Georgetown and home again before the sun sets." 
 
 Once on their horses and back on the main road to 
 Georgetown, winding gently up toward "the Heights," 
 they put Brown Bess and Selim to a brisk canter, and 
 every vestige of seriousness in Kitty vanished in the crisp 
 air as if dissolved in some sparkling alembic. When 
 they reached the beautiful old town they let their horses 
 fall into a slow walk down the wide street bordered with 
 stately trees, now almost bare of foliage, and their horses' 
 feet rustling through their fallen leaves. They were 
 admiring the beautiful homes on both sides of the way 
 and indulging in a little harmless gossip of the owners. 
 The Georgetown aristocracy were most of them numbered 
 among Morland's friends, and Kitty, if she could not claim 
 
JOHN MORLAND 265 
 
 friendship with them, knew them at least by sight and 
 by report. 
 
 As they neared the entrance to the stately grounds of 
 Monterey, Mrs. Calhoun's carriage passed through the 
 great gates on its way to some Washington function, and 
 Mrs. Calhoun, sitting in it, glanced up with interest at 
 the handsome couple. Morland greeted her with a wide 
 sweep of his hat; he admired Mrs. Calhoun greatly 
 and she had shown much partiality for the hand- 
 some young Senator. But as .she recognized Kitty, the 
 smile that had begun to return his greeting froze on her 
 lips. She nodded curtly and coldly and turned pointedly 
 away from them. 
 
 Morland was astounded, hurt, and enraged. The last 
 feeling was on Kitty's account, for he could not but 
 imderstand the cause for Mrs. Calhoun's manner. He 
 glanced at Kitty. She was looking straight ahead with a 
 white, set look on her face that went to his heart. The 
 woman must be cruel indeed that could hurt a child like 
 Kitty, he said to himself. He did not know that the 
 gossip which had been rife the winter before, and of the 
 amount of which even then he had guessed but little, and 
 which for the few weeks immediately following Suther- 
 land's death had quieted down, had broken out with new 
 virulence in the last month. Still less did he guess that it 
 was around his name that the vilest of the gossip gathered 
 — that to him the lying scandal-mongers attributed Suther- 
 land's death by his own hand. Up to this moment Mrs. 
 Calhoun had been staunch in her defense of Morland, but 
 seeing him, for the first time since his return and close 
 upon the heels of his return, riding gaily with the 
 much-talked about young widow, too recently a widow, 
 
266 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 it seemed to her, to permit such attentions, struck her 
 as irrefutable proof. A trifle light as air, but confirm- 
 ation strong as Holy Writ — she would be foolish any 
 longer to refuse to believe. 
 
 Kitty knew something of this gossip. She had heard a 
 little of it and guessed more. And it was because she so 
 clearly understood Mrs. Calhoun's action, understood 
 it as Morland could not, that she was white to the lips and 
 ready to sink with mortification and pain; the mortifica- 
 tion for herself, the pain for Morland. She cared little 
 for gossip as a rule. She was reckless where she most 
 ought to have been prudent, and careless and laughing 
 at idle reports that would have made a more sensitive 
 woman die of shame. Never before had she suffered under 
 the ostracism, which she had only recently begun to realize, 
 as she suffered at this moment, and with a relentless clear- 
 sightedness that was one of Kitty's peculiar gifts she knew 
 why. She knew she was suffering because she could not 
 bear to be scorned before Morland. Oh, if he should only 
 guess at the lying gossip she should die of shame! 
 
 She knew well that Morland had always set her on a 
 pedestal; that for him she could do no wrong; that to him 
 she was a little finer and better than any other living 
 woman. She had always known how he regarded her; she 
 had known it even as a child, and counted as surely on his 
 undeviating admiration of her and trust in her as she 
 counted on her mother's love. It did not prevent her 
 being wilful with him, scornful and friendly by turns; 
 neither did it prevent her making use of him and dropping 
 him at convenience like an old glove, for she knew that 
 under every provocation her image shone untarnished 
 in the shrine where he had set it. Now, for one intolerable 
 
SHE lOLCIlliU BROWN BESS'S SKNSHUI: FLANK SMARTLY WITH 
 HER WHIP AND WAS OFF LIKE THE WIND" 
 
JOHN MORLAND 267 
 
 moment, it seemed to her that it must be deposed, cast 
 down, sullied, shattered; and whether it was her vanity 
 or a nobler feeling that writhed at the thought, it gave 
 her one of the keenest sensations of pain she had yet 
 known. 
 
 But it was only for one intolerable moment. Kitty 
 resented pain and she had courage, which is a noble quality 
 in itself and worthy of a nobler reason for being. The 
 colour came back to her cheek and her eyes shone — not 
 with the soft light Morland had seen in them under the 
 chestnut on the banks of Rock Creek. She gave her head 
 a little toss and turned her horse toward Mrs. Calhoun's 
 rapidly disappearing carriage. 
 
 "I will race you back to Washington, Major Morland," 
 she called gaily; and without waiting for him to remon- 
 strate, as he strongly wished to do, she touched Brown 
 Bess's sensitive flank smartly with her whip and was off 
 like the wind — to all appearance in full pursuit of Mrs. 
 Calhoun. 
 
 There was nothing for Morland to do but to follow, 
 though nothing could have been more repugnant to him 
 than thus to seem to be flaunting his bravado in a lady's 
 face. It took but a few minutes to overtake Mrs. Cal- 
 houn's carriage. Kitty swept by it, well in the lead, her 
 head turned pointedly away. Morland followed, and put 
 his hand to his hat, but his jaws were set and his steely 
 glance was straight ahead; it was an ordeal for him. 
 
 But not for the laughing Kitty. She drew rein when 
 they were well out of sight of Mrs. Calhoun, and waited 
 for Morland to come up. 
 
 "I 'm resting Brown Bess," she said as Morland joined 
 her and the two horses walked quietly along together. 
 
268 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 "for when we get to Washington I intend to race again, 
 and see if we can horrify any more Mrs. Grundys." 
 
 "Kitty! " Morland began to expostulate, but Kitty would 
 not let him get any further. 
 
 "It's no use, sir," with a glittering smile. "I 'm a 
 hopeless outcast and you may as well come along to purga- 
 tory with me." 
 
 " Where thou goest I will follow, " said Morland grimly, 
 and he meant it. Under Kitty 's glittering smile and 
 light words he read the deadly hurt she had received, and 
 if she was to be ostracized, very well, they should 
 ostracize him also. 
 
 Kitty was as good as her word. Through Washington 
 streets she sped, and Brown Bess being swifter of foot than 
 Morland's horse he had all the air of being in hot pursuit, 
 which pleased Kitty mightily because she thought it must 
 offend Morland's sense of his own dignity. 
 
 But John was not coring. All Washington society 
 might think as they pleased of him so long as they thought 
 so badly of Kitty. Only once did he wince. As they 
 turned off the Avenue into the side street leading to 
 McCabe's, they passed Montclair sauntering jauntily 
 along. Montclair lifted his fingers and blew a kiss to 
 Kitty, and Kitty flung him one recklessly back. 
 
 "Kitty goes a little too far sometimes," John muttered 
 grimly under his breath. 
 
 Kitty thought so herself as soon as it was done, but they 
 were at her door in a moment and John had flung his 
 bridle to Jeff, in waiting, and sprung to lift Kitty from 
 Brown Bess. 
 
 " I 'm afraid you '11 never want to go riding with me 
 again," said Kitty demurely, as he set her on her feet, her 
 
JOHN MORLAND 269 
 
 curling lashes lying on her cheek aflame with a colour not 
 wholly due to the brisk ride and the keen December air. 
 
 John glanced at her and his anger vanished into thin 
 mist. 
 
 "Oh, Kitty, Kitty, why can't you behave yourself," he 
 groaned, and then smiled fatuously at the pretty picture 
 of penitence she made. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 A TERRIBLE PROVOCATION 
 
 MORLAND had need to recall that hour spent with 
 Kitty under the spreading chestnut many times 
 in the weeks that followed. A more wilful, wayward 
 Kitty he had never known in all her years of wilfulness 
 and waywardness. He despaired sometimes of ever 
 catching a glimpse of the real Kitty as he still believed 
 her to be. 
 
 Kitty had told Montclair she would never ride with 
 him again until he brought her Brown Bess to ride on. 
 This was now a manifest impossibility for Montclair, but 
 that fact neither gave Morland undue hope nor plunged 
 Montclair into despair. Both men knew Kitty well 
 enough to know that her words spoken quickly in anger 
 were often as quickly forgotten, and the one would 
 be a poltroon to let his fear of them govern him as the 
 other would be a fool to build any hopes upon them. 
 
 It was just a week later that John, coming home 
 from the Capitol, saw Montclair and Kitty riding up 
 toward McCabe's from the opposite direction. Kitty 
 waved her hand saucily to him, but it was dusk and 
 John could pretend not to see it, for he did not care to 
 show his disapproval and still less did he wish to seem 
 complaisant. 
 
 The lovely Indian summer weather of a week ago 
 had given place, the day after their ride, to cold and 
 
 270 
 
THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 271 
 
 drizzling rains. This was the very first day the weather 
 would have permitted riding, and John had been hoping, 
 on his way home, that he. would find that Kitty had 
 been out on Brown Bess. He had suggested it to her 
 when he had seen her for a moment in the morning, and 
 he had also said how much he wished he could get away 
 to go with her, but that it would be impossible on account 
 of a press of work. Kitty, in her unreasoning fashion, 
 had brooded over this a little, and had concluded that 
 Morland did not want to go with her — that she had 
 sufiiciently mortified him on their last ride. Kitty 
 could never understand how business or anything else 
 in the world could keep a man away from a woman he 
 really cared to be with. 
 
 She welcomed, therefore, as a solace to her sense of 
 slight, a note from Montclair inviting her to ride, and 
 promptly dispatched an acceptance. If she recalled 
 her speech to him about Brown Bess, she decided to 
 eat her words as gracefully as possible, but very likely 
 she did not remember them. She was glad to meet 
 Morland on her return and have him see her with Mont- 
 clair — she regarded it as a just- punishment for his 
 not having invited her himself. Nor did she for a mo- 
 ment doubt that he had seen her — his pretence of 
 blindness only pleased her as an evidence of feeling. 
 
 The next day Morland decided to run away from 
 work for a couple of hours if Kitty would go riding with 
 him. But Kitty had made an engagement with Mont- 
 dair the day before, and she liked very well being able 
 to say to him: "You see, sir, I am somewhat in de- 
 mand; it is necessary to make engagements with me at 
 least twenty-four hours ahead." 
 
272 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 "Very well, Kitty," said Morland, laughing at her 
 airs, "will you ride with me to-morrow?" 
 
 Kitty said yes, but to-morrow was raining again, and 
 another week of drizzle and sleet set in, prohibiting all 
 thought of riding. 
 
 Morland's luck was against him. When the weather 
 once more cleared and he might have gone a press of 
 work again prevented. He had suggested, as before, 
 that Kitty take Brown Bess and Jeff, and Kitty said she 
 thought she would. Leaving the Capitol a little before 
 five o'clock to go to Gadsby's where he had an engage- 
 ment to meet Van Buren for dinner and further discuss 
 matters of importance, in crossing the street he ran 
 square into Kitty and Montclair riding together, and 
 Kitty was riding Brown Bess! 
 
 It was dark, for they were at the very shortest days 
 of the year, and Kitty might not have recognized Mor- 
 land but that he happened to stop exactly where the 
 light from one of the smoky lamps of the Avenue fell 
 full upon his face, and it would have taken a more 
 hardened nature than Kitty's to meet unabashed that 
 stern glance, where astonishment, question, and dis- 
 pleasure spoke as loudly as words in the honest blue eyes. 
 
 Morland was deeply displeased. He knew that he 
 had made it perfectly clear to Kitty that the condition 
 of using Brown Bess referred most of all to Montclair. 
 Kitty was not stupid; she could not misunderstand 
 him. Was there no trusting her? How was he to 
 settle the matter? Either horn of the dilemma was 
 equally embarrassing. If he prohibited Kitty's riding 
 Brown Bess he would be treating her like a naughty 
 child and rendering himself ridiculous. If he took 
 
JOHN MORLAND 273 
 
 no notice of it he proved that he had taken an untenable 
 position and was too weak to hold it — which he said 
 to himself was the exact state of the case. 
 
 He had not yet determined upon his line of action 
 when he returned to McCabe's. Only one thing he 
 had determined upon: that for some days, at least, he 
 would see as little as possible of Kitty, and should he 
 accidentally meet her his manner should convey to 
 her his continued displeasure. 
 
 In pursuance of this plan he was hurrying through 
 the dining-room to his own room when McCabe 
 stopped him with a message from Kitty. She asked 
 him to come to her mother's parlour for a few minutes. 
 It was not a request that he could refuse if he wished, 
 and he did not wish. He was so sure it meant that Kitty 
 was repentant and wanted to apologize, and he was so 
 delighted at the thought and so ready to forgive her, that 
 it was with trembling eagerness he hastened to obey. 
 
 But he had not yet learned to know Kitty. She was 
 alone in the room, by an arrangement with her mother, 
 and she did not, for a moment, lift her eyes as Morland 
 stood at the door making his bow. He thought that it 
 indicated embarrassment and he would help her over 
 a difficult place. 
 
 "Well, Kitty," he said, gently, "what is it?" 
 
 "Will you be so good as to close the door. Major 
 Morland?" said Kitty, lifting steely eyes to Morland's, 
 and speaking coldly. 
 
 He did as she requested and stood waiting. His 
 visions of a repentant Kitty had vanished at her tone 
 and her glance, and he now stood bracing himself for 
 what he was to meet. 
 
274 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 "Will you be seated, sir?" said Kitty in the same voice. 
 
 "Thank you, I prefer standing," Morland replied in 
 a tone that matched hers. 
 
 "As you please," said Kitty. "I have asked you 
 to come in here, Major Morland, to say to you that I 
 refuse ever again to ride Brown Bess so long as she 
 remains your property." 
 
 She waited as if for Morland to speak, and he merely 
 bent his head and repeated her words, "As you please, 
 Mrs. Sutherland." 
 
 Kitty's next words were as hot as her first had been cold. 
 
 "I want you to know, sir, that I am not to be treated 
 as a naughty child if, when I am riding your horse, I 
 happen by the merest chance to meet a gentleman and 
 he turns his horse to ride a few blocks with me. A 
 pretty figure I must cut if I am compelled to say 
 'Excuse me, but Major Morland will not permit me to 
 ride with you. This is his horse and he allows no gen- 
 tleman but himself to ride with me when I am on it.' " 
 
 Morland was struck with dismay. It could very easily 
 have happened in that fashion, ajnd Kitty was right; she 
 could do no less than permit it without making both 
 herself and him ridiculous. 
 
 "Was that the way it happened, Kitty?" he asked, 
 anxiously. 
 
 "Certainly! You must know me very little. Major 
 Morland, if you could suppose that I would designedly 
 violate your confidence. But I refuse to place myself 
 in such a position again — I will not ride Brown Bess." 
 
 "You are quite right, Kitty," said Morland, heartily, 
 "and I beg your pardon for ever putting you in such a 
 predicament. I remove all conditions. All I ever meant 
 
JOHN MORLAND 275 
 
 was that if Montclair or any one else invited you to 
 ride he should bring his own horses, but I remove even 
 that restriction now. Use Brown Bess as if she were your 
 own. I will trust you not to use her in a way I would 
 not like any more than you can help — and I hope you 
 will save a ride for me occasionally." 
 
 Kitty had intended to have a real quarrel — there 
 was nothing she enjoyed more — but there was no 
 quarrelling with Morland. She hesitated a moment, 
 wavered, and was lost. She was all dimples and smiles 
 again. 
 
 " Oh, dear," she said, petulantly, " there 's no fun 
 in trying to quarrel with you — you are too good. What 
 makes you so good to me. Major Morland?" 
 
 It was on the tip of Morland 's tongue to say: 
 "Because I love you, Kittyl" But he well knew that would 
 end all his pleasant intercourse with her. She liked 
 him well enough as an old friend whom she could trust 
 and who stood ready to help her through every difficulty. 
 But a lover! that was a different matter. So he said, 
 instead : 
 
 " I suppose it 's a habit with me, Kitty. Let me 
 see — eight years, is it, or more, since I first took you 
 on my knee?" 
 
 "And you can 't get over the habit of thinking I 'm 
 still a child, can you?" said Kitty, pouting. "It's 
 your only fault. Major Morland; do treat me as if I were 
 grown up." 
 
 "Are you?" he asked. 
 
 Kitty blushed a little as she answered with unusual 
 seriousness : 
 
 "I 'm not sure. Sometimes I 'm afraid I never will 
 
276 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 grow up, and my friends will always have to be making 
 allowances for me. Oh, dear, I wish I were different!" 
 
 "Not for worlds!" said Morland, laughing at her 
 melancholy face. "You wouldn't be Kitty if you 
 were not the most wilful little rose that was ever set 
 about with thorns. With all your faults we love you 
 still." 
 
 Kitty looked up with a tear trembling on her curly 
 lashes. 
 
 "Oh, don't make fun of me, Major Morland. I mean 
 what I say." 
 
 "And I mean what I say, Kitty," he replied, earnestly. 
 "We all love you exactly as you are." 
 
 That tear and this delicious, melting mood of Kitty's 
 were too much for Morland; he knew if he stayed a 
 minute longer he could not keep back the words that 
 were at this minute demanding utterance with such 
 violence that his brain was swimming and his heart 
 pounding. He would leave her while he was still him- 
 self. Kitty had not answered his last words — a faint 
 smile was hovering under her drooping eyelids and 
 around the melting curves of her scarlet lips. To save 
 himself Morland spoke brusquely: 
 
 "I must be off — it's late. Good-night, Kitty." 
 
 "Oh — , good-night," said Kitty, lifting her eyes with a 
 little dazed expression in them as of one just rousing 
 herself from a dream. 
 
 It was more than the fear that he would lose all his 
 pleasant association with Kitty that had kept Morland 
 from sjjeaking. It seemed sacrilege to him to violate 
 the first year of her widowhood with such words. He 
 was punctiliousness itself where some matters were 
 
JOHN MORLAND 277 
 
 concerned, and this was one of them. The result of this 
 evening's experience was to make him a little shy of 
 Kitty for a while, but he soon discovered a much more 
 remarkable thing — that Kitty was being shy of him. 
 Heretofore she could not have been on more perfect 
 terms of freedom with him had he been her father, Mor- 
 land sometimes irritably thought, but there seemed to 
 have come a subtle change over all that; Kitty was occa- 
 sionally constrained in his presence, sometimes she even 
 avoided him, and there was often in her manner a little 
 air of mortification and defiance. It was as if she said 
 to him: "I gave you your chance and you did not take 
 it. I am not to be treated like an old glove — you shall 
 have no more chances." 
 
 That, with the rush of political duties and bad weather 
 for horseback riding, combined to prevent his seeing 
 much of Kitty until one day in early January there came 
 a letter to Morland from Tennessee bearing the sad 
 tidings of Rachel's death on the very eve of the great 
 ball to be given in Nashville in celebration of her hus- 
 band's election. 
 
 The letter said : "You were coming on to escort 
 him to Washington; come at once. He is a heart- 
 broken man — he needs his friends beside him." 
 
 He read the letter to Mrs. McCabe and Kitty, and 
 they wept much. They had loved Mrs. Jackson, but it 
 was for the broken-hearted hero they wept. No one 
 who knew him could fail to realize how desolate his life 
 would be without the gentle woman he had loved with 
 the whole strength of his ardent nature. 
 
 Morland delayed his departure only long enough to 
 make a few necessary preparations. No packet would 
 
278 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 be starting from Pittsburg for nearly a week; it would 
 be much quicker to take the old familiar horseback 
 ride through the mountains, and he would start that 
 very afternoon, making his first stage only as far as 
 Baltimore. 
 
 He knew that Kitty knew all this, and so when he 
 hurried home early from the Capitol, hoping for a few 
 minutes with her before he should be obliged to set out, 
 he felt a disappointment so keen as to be hardly com- 
 mensurate with the occasion, he thought, when he saw 
 her just starting off for a ride with Montclair. 
 
 She was not riding Brown Bess, nor had she ever 
 ridden her with Montclair, so far as Morland knew, 
 since he had removed all restrictions. That in itself 
 pleased him, though Kitty's light farewell carelessly 
 flung him as he came up to the doorstep not only hurt 
 him, it angered him, since Montclair was there to see it. 
 
 "I suppose you will be gone before I get back. Major 
 Morland," she called to him, indifferently. "Give 
 my love to Greneral Jackson." 
 
 "Is that all the good-bye you have for me, Kitty?" 
 he said, coming up to her horse's side with extended hand. 
 Montclair or not, he was not going to take that long 
 ride through the wintry mountain passes with no memory 
 of even the touch of Kitty's hand to take with him. 
 
 "Oh, well," she said, lightly, as she put her hand in 
 his, "Good-bye and good luck! And tell the General 
 all the things I told you this morning to tell him." 
 
 He could not be sure that she returned even slightly 
 the warm pressure of his hand on hers, and when he 
 looked into her eyes a laughing and mocking sprite 
 looked back at him — not a gleam of the tenderness 
 
JOHN MORLAND 279 
 
 for which he had hoped. He let her hand slip inertly 
 from his, nodded to Montclair, turned and went into the 
 house. 
 
 How often he had taken that ride in the last nine 
 years! How familiar was every turn of the way, and 
 how associated with thoughts of Kitty! Every hill and 
 tree and rock, the swirling waters of the Kanawha and 
 the unfolding panorama of the mountains all spoke her 
 name. Rachel, the beloved, was dead to the husband 
 who loved her, but not more deaf were her ears or colder 
 her heart or unresponsive her lips and her eyes to the 
 agonized entreaty of her husband's love than were 
 Kitty's to his love. Kitty was dead to him; of that he 
 was almost convinced. They were farther apart now 
 than when he had arrived in Washington six weeks 
 before — he would forget her and bury his love as 
 finally and as hopelessly as Jackson had buried the 
 Rachel he loved. 
 
 He had been prepared to find a heart-broken man, 
 but he was hardly prepared for the vindictive wrath 
 that blazed through his grief. Jackson believed that 
 it was the lying calumnies of the campaign that had 
 killed his beloved Rachel, and he never forgave the 
 men he believed had instigated them. To Morland 
 he seemed a broken old man, twenty years older than when 
 he had last seen him, but the fire of youth was in his 
 haggard eyes as he threw his arm around John's 
 shoulders and said affectionately: 
 
 "It was like you to come to me at once, my boy, and 
 now you must stand by me every step of the way. I 
 shall never rest until I have had my revenge on those 
 villains who hounded my Rachel to her death." 
 
280 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 Morland had arrived at his own plantation late Satur- 
 day night, and early Sunday morning he had ridden 
 over to the Hermitage fifteen miles away. Jackson 
 had taken him at once to Rachel's grave in a corner 
 of the Hermitage grounds, and it was beside her grave 
 that he had uttered his vindictive words. They sounded 
 like sacrilege to Morland in such a spot, but he knew 
 that it was the rugged old hero's nature to flame with 
 resentment at the thought of a wrong to the gentle 
 Rachel, and it was, perhaps, also an outlet for the grief 
 that else might overwhelm him. 
 
 He found that he had arrived barely in time. Jackson 
 was going to Washington earlier than was at first in- 
 tended. Since the Hermitage was now so lonely his 
 friends thought it well to get him away from it as soon 
 as possible. That very afternoon the President-elect's 
 party boarded the steamer that was to carry them down 
 the Cumberland to the Ohio and up the Ohio to Pitts- 
 burg — a longer journey than it would be to-day, and 
 the whole length, of it one great ovation. Every hamlet 
 and village and city poured out its throngs to greet the 
 conquering hero, and even every farmhouse and plan- 
 tation had its piccaninny on watch to give tidings of 
 the approach of the steamer and to salute it with waving 
 flags and shouts of adulation from every human being 
 on the place gathered on the river's bank. 
 
 All this pleased Jackson greatly, and he showed his 
 pleasure with the naivete of a great man and an un- 
 usually simple and childlike one. 
 
 "I believe the people love me, John," he said, as they 
 stood upon the deck together while the boat steamed 
 out from Cincinnati, where the whole State of Ohio 
 
JOHN MORLAND 281 
 
 seemed to have poured down to the wharves en masse 
 to cheer him on his way, " and I go to Washington with 
 one single aim: to administer the government, as far 
 as in me lies, purely and solely for the people's best 
 interests." 
 
 Morland came back to Washington determined to 
 think as little as possible of Kitty, and the tremendous 
 vortex of political duties and interests into which Jackson 
 and his friends were immediately plunged helped him 
 not a little to keep the resolution. All America seemed 
 following in the wake of the conqueror. A great tide 
 had set in toward Washington from every point of the 
 compass the moment it was known he was on his way 
 there; a large majority, no doubt, with the simple pur- 
 pose of being on hand to swell the triumph of their idol, 
 but hordes of them, also, vultures eager for the spoils 
 of the fray. Jackson's friends must never be absent 
 from him if they would save him from becoming a 
 victim to his own easy good-nature and the cunning 
 of the politicians. One or the other of them was always 
 on guard, and John's sentinel hours took much of his 
 time; there was little left for his own thoughts or his 
 own affairs. But it was a still greater help to him in 
 sticking to his resolution to think little of Kitty that 
 she seemed to be thinking little or nothing at all of him 
 these days. She had greeted his return as carelessly 
 as she had received his farewell, though with the rest 
 of Washington she was gone quite wild with excitement 
 over the arrival of Jackson. 
 
 It was two weeks after his return. He was sitting 
 in one of the hotels waiting impatiently for the appear- 
 ance of Major Lewis, who had promised to meet him 
 
282 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 there and discuss, over a glass of wine, one paragr.-ph 
 in Jackson's inaugural address which pleased neither 
 of them and which they hoped to persuade him to 
 change. Morland had taken possession of a small 
 table in a comer near a window which had the double 
 advantage of commanding all the arrivals at the hotel 
 and of being also suflBciently at a distance from the 
 other tables to make any conversation carried on in a 
 reasonably low tone inaudible. He was employing 
 his interval of waiting by reading the United States 
 Telegraph, enjoying Duff Green's racy editorials and 
 laughing quietly to himself over some of them. But a 
 little paragraph which seemed to be a veiled intimation 
 that a seat in the cabinet was to be offered to him made 
 him drop his paper and give himself up for a while to 
 the luxury of day-dreams. 
 
 It was what he had long ardently coveted, but had 
 rarely allowed himself to think of. Ambition could 
 vault no higher than to a cabinet seat while still under 
 forty. He had had hints from other quarters that he 
 might receive the appointment, but he had desired it 
 too intensely to allow himself to count much on these 
 vague promises. He knew that without doubt one of 
 the cabinet places would go to Tennessee, and that no 
 other man in the state had rendered such signal service 
 in the campaign as he. He knew, too, that Jackson 
 loved him, and relied on him with something of the trust 
 of a father in a son, but he believed there were other 
 men in the state older than he, and with other qualifi- 
 cations, to whom Jackson must necessarily give the 
 precedence when it came to the offer of a portfolio. 
 But there was no harm in a little castle-building and 
 
JOHN MORLAND 283 
 
 no better use to which he could put these few minutes 
 of waiting. He gave himself up to the luxury. 
 
 Through the window, where he glanced from time to 
 time to see whether Major Lewis was coming, he now 
 saw Montclair and two friends alight from their horses, 
 throw their bridles to black boys in waiting, and run 
 up the steps talking and laughing loudly. He believed 
 from their manner that they had been drinking, and 
 that they were probably only stopping for more drinks. 
 He hoped they were going to the bar and would not 
 come in to the caf^ where he was sitting, for the mere 
 proximity of Montclair was intensely disagreeable to him. 
 A moment later he heard their noisy entrance, and he 
 buried himself in his paper, trusting to be unobserved. 
 
 Montclair did not see him, and his two friends did 
 not know him, or probably neither of the three would 
 have chosen the table nearest Morland, where Montclair 
 sat down with his back to Morland, the other two men 
 facing him. Montclair ordered the drinks — it was 
 evident they were out-of-town men he was entertaining 
 — and for a few minutes they were sufficiently quiet to 
 permit Morland to go on with his reading undisturbed. 
 Then he heard Montclair's voice, raised above the 
 ordinary conversational pitch: 
 
 "Here's to the fair Kitty!" 
 
 "Who 's Kitty?" one of the men asked as both lifted 
 their glasses to touch Montclair's. But the other gave 
 Montclair no chance to answer. 
 
 "Oh, I know — I 've seen her and I 've heard of her. 
 She 's the charming Widow Sutherland the whole 
 town 's talking about; but I thought she belonged to 
 Senator Morland." 
 
284 THE PATIENCE OP 
 
 "People think so," said Montclair, with a conscious 
 simper, "but people don't always know. He com- 
 promised her so thoroughly when her husband was 
 alive that most people think that was the cause of his 
 suicide, though, of course, another cause was assigned, 
 and the charming widow naturally avoids him now. 
 She does not want " 
 
 But Montclair got no further. The whole conversa- 
 tion had consumed not quite a minute, and it had taken 
 that time for Morland to recover from the daze into 
 which the first mention of Kitty's name had plunged 
 him. But Montclair's speech had effectually roused 
 him and the two men facing him saw the distinguished- 
 looking man they had both observed spring from his 
 seat and advance toward them with flaming eyes. It 
 was the expression in his friends' faces that stopped 
 Montclair's speech and made him half turn in his chair 
 to see what was happening behind him that could accoimt 
 for it. At sight of Morland he visibly quailed for a 
 moment, but he had been drinking heavily and he had 
 a reputation to sustain with his two out-of-town friends; 
 he summoned what courage he could to his aid and 
 determined to brave it out. 
 
 The room was beginning to fill up, and those entering 
 and those seated, as well as the coloured waiters in the 
 room, all turned curiously to Montclair's table and the 
 excited group surrounding it. Morland was keenly 
 aware of their curious glances and painfully anxious that 
 there should be no further breath of Kitty's name. He 
 bent slightly down toward Montclair, therefore, and 
 spoke in a low tone of concentrated wrath: 
 
 "You will never dare mention that name in public 
 
JOHN MORLAND 285 
 
 again, if you please, Mr. Montclair, and you will retract 
 at once every lying word you have just uttered to these 
 gentlemen." 
 
 Montclair's face was a deep purple. 
 
 "Been eavesdropping?" he sneered. 
 
 It took every atom of self-restraint he possessed and 
 the thought of Kitty as well to keep Morland from 
 striking him on his evil mouth. 
 
 "Consider your face slapped, sir," he said, in a still 
 lower tone of yet more concentrated fury, "and if you 
 will send one of your friends to my rooms an hour from 
 now I will have a friend there who will arrange matters 
 with him." 
 
 He waited for no reply from Montclair, but turned 
 quickly and left the room carrying his head high and 
 his thoughts in too much of a turmoil to even remember 
 his engagement with Lewis. 
 
BOOK III 
 MISTRESS MORLAND 
 
 287 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE WOOING OF KITTY 
 
 TT WAS a ten-minutes' walk to Morland's rooms at 
 ■*■ McCabe's, a ten minutes in which was condensed 
 the thinking, reasoning, planning, deciding of an ordi- 
 'nary man's lifetime. The thinking was hard, troubled, 
 tumultuous; the reasoning keen and lightning-like; the 
 planning swift and masterly; the decision for all time. 
 
 He compromise Kitty! God forbid! This, then, 
 was why she had avoided him of late. She had heard 
 lying rumours and would save him as well as herself. 
 They were lies, of course, and had emanated without a 
 doubt from that arch-liar, Montclair. And then there 
 flashed into his mind Mrs. Decatur's hint to him last 
 spring; her cool aloofness when he had chanced to meet 
 her this fall; Mrs. Calhoun's pointed coldness to both 
 him and Kitty when she had met them riding together. 
 This was what they were saying, was it ? — that Sutherland 
 had killed himself because of his relations with Kitty! 
 No; it was unbelievable! Men and women could not be 
 so vile — they could not have hearts in their bosoms 
 and be so cruel! 
 
 Well, there was but one course left to them. Kitty 
 must marry him, and marry him at once. She did not 
 love him, and she might easily refuse to marry him, 
 but she must be made to see that it was the only thing 
 left for her to do. Moreover, it must be done at once. 
 
290 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 She must bear his name before^ he went out to meet 
 Montclair, so that whatever the issue she would be 
 vindicated. 
 
 And then there rushed over him all the horror and 
 loathing with which he had always regarded duelling; 
 and with a man like Montclair for whom a horse- 
 whipping would be too good ! He had heretofore insisted 
 there was no manliness in settling a quarrel with pistols 
 — he who by chance pulled the trigger first was the 
 murderer and the other the innocent victim, when, in 
 truth, both were equally guilty. Swords might be a 
 little better — there was some chance for skill, at least, 
 in their use — but Montclair was not going to choose 
 swords, and if he should it left unchanged the moral 
 question involved. Every instinct and every cherished 
 principle rose up in revolt against his resorting to the 
 duel when he had so long been loudest in its condemna- 
 tion. 
 
 Through all the tumult of his thoughts he was also 
 swiftly planning. Jeff must be despatched immediately 
 in search of a friend to act as his second, and there were 
 not many friends of his whom he would like to call on 
 for such an office. He ran over the list in his mind, and 
 decided finally on John Randolph. He could trust 
 both his knowledge of such affairs and his discretion, 
 and more than that he could trust him to understand 
 how he had become involved in a transaction of a kind he 
 detested. Randolph once found — he did not fear his 
 refusal to act — and the preliminaries arranged with 
 Montclair's second, he would seek Kitty. He would 
 explain to her the absolute necessity of marrying him 
 and at once, and her consent gained he would send for 
 
JOHN MORLAND 291 
 
 a clerygman and have the ceremony performed in Mrs. 
 McCabe's parlour with only Tim and his wife present. 
 
 Having reached this point in his planning he stopped 
 once more, chilled to the heart. What a different 
 wooing was this from the one that for months had hovered 
 in the background of his thoughts. He had only been 
 waiting for that year of widowhood to be over when he 
 should begin in earnest to win her, with no art and no 
 effort left untried. He wanted no unwilling bride, but 
 this was now his doom; and the event that under other 
 circumstances would have made him deliriously happy, 
 new filled him with shuddering distaste in its contem- 
 plation. 
 
 Hie brain, a whirling maelstrom of such thoughts, he 
 was hurrying blindly through the dining-room of 
 McCabe's toward his own room when Tim called him: 
 
 "Here is a letter for you, Major Morland," said Tim. 
 with even more than his usual deference, as he handed 
 Morland a sealed envelope. "It was left for you by one 
 of General Jackson's servants." 
 
 "Oh!" said Morland taking the letter with a half- 
 bewildered look, for he could not readily rouse himself 
 from his thoughts. He recognized the writing, and 
 at any other time he would have felt a thrill of expec- 
 tancy, for it must be something very formal indeed that 
 Jackson would communicate to him in writing. "Will 
 you send Jeff to me at once, Mr. McCabe?" he said 
 as he turned to go to his room. He closed his own door 
 behind him, drew up a chair before a blazing fire of 
 hickory logs and, sitting down in it, mechanically opened 
 his letter. 
 
 There in his hands lay the much-coveted gift — Jack- 
 
292 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 son offered him, formally, a seat in his cabinet. He 
 looked at it long with a dull feeling of anger. Fate 
 was mocking him. What was a seat in the cabinet to 
 him now! His darling ambition accomplished had 
 turned to Dead Sea fruit in his hands. He was to 
 marry Kitty, and if Jackson was as familiar with all 
 these lying scandals as every one else seemed to be, 
 then Jackson would very properly feel that he must 
 withdraw his offer from Kitty's husband. Well, what 
 mattered it — Kitty was innocent, and Kitty must be 
 saved at all hazards. 
 
 But here was another complication in his plans. This 
 was not a communication whose answer could be de- 
 ferred until his private affairs were attended to. It 
 must take precedence of everything — the duel, his 
 marriage to Kitty (for not one moment did he doubt 
 its accomplishment), would both have to wait until he 
 had made that call on General Jackson which etiquette 
 demanded he should make in declining the honour con- 
 ferred upon him. 
 
 Jeff's entrance roused him. He wrote a hurried note 
 to Randolph and despatched Jeff with it, and then, 
 realizing that there were but a few minutes that he 
 could call his own before the probable arrival of Randolph 
 and the later arrival of Montclair's second, he set himself 
 feverishly to work on the necessary matters of business 
 that must be arranged in case of a fatal issue to the 
 duel. There was not much that needed attention — 
 he was a methodical man in business — but there was 
 a will to be destroyed and a new one written. The 
 new one was very brief, and, with the exception of a 
 few legacies, left everything to Kitty — "whether in the 
 
JOHN MORLAND 293 
 
 providence of God she may be the widow Sutherland 
 or Mistress Morland." 
 
 He was writing the last words of it when Randolph 
 entered. 
 
 "It was good of you to come so quickly, Mr. Ran- 
 dolph," said Morland, rising to greet him. 
 
 "You could not expect me to disregard such a sum- 
 mons," Randolph answered as the two men clasped 
 hands, " but I 'm sorry you ever let yourself get into 
 such an affair with such a fellow as Montclair. I can't 
 yet believe it will proceed to an issue — the coxcomb 's 
 a coward." 
 
 "I am sure of it," said Morland, "and he will wriggle 
 out of it if possible, and with all nry heart I hope he 
 will. I do not believe in duels, and I have no stomach 
 for one with a man I despise as I do him. I would 
 prefer a more honourable exit from this world." 
 
 But if they counted on Montclair's cowardice it 
 played them a trick this time. He was too great a coward 
 to decline to meet Morland when the challenge had 
 been given in the presence of the two fiery young Vir- 
 ginians who did not for a moment dream of his declining 
 it. They did not know Morland — they believed the 
 tales of him were true; nor did they know Montclair 
 sufficiently well to know the vileness that dwelt beneath 
 a polished exterior. Randolph and Morland were still 
 talking over the arrangements when Montclair's second 
 appeared, and Morland only waited, before withdrawing 
 to his bedroom, to request the signatures of the two 
 seconds as witnesses to his will. 
 
 Alone in his bedroom he paced the floor restlessly. 
 There was so much to be done in the few remaining 
 
294 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 hours of the day, he was impatient to be doing it. Only 
 one stipulation he had made with Randolph — the 
 duel must not come off before the next morning. The 
 hours of this day had other duties assigned them. The 
 arrangements were simple, and less time was consumed 
 in making them than Morland could have reasonably 
 hoped; nor, once made and Montclair's second de- 
 parted, did Randolph detain him long with a report 
 of them. It was hardly more than a year since Ran- 
 dolph's duel with Clay, and he did not forget that in 
 such an hour every minute of a man's time is precious. 
 
 It was half an hour later that Morland walked into 
 Jackson's room at the hotel. Jackson's room was 
 apt to be thronged, but Morland had written on 
 his card: "May I see you alone for a moment?" 
 and supposing, of course, that he had come to thank 
 him for his cabinet place, and not caring yet to have 
 his cabinet list made public, Jackson cleared his room 
 at once. 
 
 The old General's face was radiant as John entered 
 the .room. He was happier in the being able to give 
 his young friend — as dear to him as a son — this 
 greatly coveted honour than Morland would have been 
 in receiving it if he had been able to accept it. At 
 sight of Morland's face his own fell. 
 
 "What is it, John?" he asked, anxiously. 
 
 John saw the sudden darkening of Jackson's ex- 
 pressive face and felt almost more keenly the disappoint- 
 ment he was about to occasion than he had felt his own 
 most poignant one. 
 
 "I cannot accept it," he said, briefly. 
 
JOHN MORLAND 295 
 
 "Why?" came with a harsh dip, and the heavy brows 
 began to beetle ominously over the flashing eyes. 
 
 "Because I am going to marry the widow Sutherland." 
 
 "Kitty?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "What has that to do with it?" 
 
 "You have heard, I suppose, the lying scandals about 
 her?" said John, trying to speak steadily. 
 
 " I don't know. There has always been more or less 
 talk about Kitty," said Jackson somewhat mollified. 
 "Is it anything new?" 
 
 "I had not heard until to-day," said John, still trying 
 to speak composedly, "that it was I who had compro- 
 mised her — that I was responsible for Sutherland's 
 suicide." 
 
 "My God, John! Do the scoundrels say thatf" 
 
 Jackson stopped abruptly in his hasty pacing up 
 and down the room which he had begun at Morland's 
 first words, his face an almost ludicrous mingling of 
 expressions — tenderness and anxiety for John strug- 
 gling with wrath and scorn of John's traducers. 
 
 Morland's reply was a mere bend of the head — he 
 could not trust himself to speak. 
 
 "If they are saying that," Jackson went on with 
 towering indignation, "then the only course left to you 
 is to marry Kitty at once and call out every blackguard 
 that has said it and make him eat his words. When 
 those two duties are performed I will be proud to wel- 
 come you to my cabinet. I am not sure, now, that 
 you would be welcome without Kitty." 
 
 Morland was in no mood for smiling, but he needs 
 must, a little, at these characteristic words of the irate 
 
296 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 General. The smile had a twist in it, however, for was 
 he not going to follow out Jackson's recommendations 
 to the letter? — he who had so often deplored his chief's 
 ready resort to the pistol for settling his quarrels. More- 
 over, he still believed that if such a scandal was in 
 common circulation about Washington, it would be 
 unwise to introduce into the new cabinet a member 
 whose social history could be called in question by any 
 lying scoundrel; it would be a vulnerable point, he 
 foresaw, for the shafts of the enemies of the administration. 
 But there was no resisting the rugged old soldier. 
 Morland had gone to him with the simple idea of de- 
 clining the offered honour; he found there was no 
 leaving him until he had given a reluctant consent to 
 accepting it. 
 
 On leaving McCabe's for this interview with Jackson 
 he had stopped a moment at Mrs. McCabe's parlour 
 to speak with Kitty. Kitty was there, with her mother 
 and Janet, and the first brief salutations over, he delivered 
 his message at once. 
 
 "Kitty," he said, abruptly, "I have an important 
 errand to General Jackson, but I will be back in half 
 an hour; will you go to walk with me, then?" 
 
 Kitty's mother looked up at him curiously. She 
 never remembered Major Morland to have given an 
 invitation of any kind with so little conciliatory grace 
 — it sounded more like a demand than a request. She 
 hardly wondered at the hesitation and evasion of Kitty's 
 reply: 
 
 "I'm not sure — I can't tell. Janet doesn't seem 
 very well this afternoon," 
 
JOHN MORLAND 297 
 
 "She doesn't want to go with me — she is trying to 
 shun me as she has shunned me ever since my return," 
 said Morland to himself bitterly. Nevertheless it was 
 not a matter he could easily give up. Kitty must be 
 compelled to take that walk with him or he must blurt 
 out his proposal here, in the presence of Kitty's mother 
 and baby and the nurse Emmeline. 
 
 "It's very important, Kitty — will you go?" he said, 
 with more gentleness than he had used at first. 
 
 "Oh, won't some other afternoon do as well?" said 
 Kitty, impatiently. 
 
 "No!" 
 
 It was rather a thundering "no" for Morland, and 
 half frightened Kitty. It half frightened Mrs. McCabe, 
 also, and she hastened to interpose: 
 
 "Janet will be all right, Kitty, if you want to go; 
 Emmeline and I will look after her." 
 
 "Oh, very well, then, I will go, Major Morland," said 
 Kitty, ungraciously, and was a little awed again by his 
 stern way of replying: 
 
 "Very well, Kitty. Be ready, please, when I return 
 in half an hour." 
 
 He had found her quite ready on his return from his 
 interview with Jackson, looking like the nineteen-year- 
 old-girl that had bewitched Lieutenant Sutherland 
 on that fateful walk down the Avenue from Miss Eng- 
 lish's school to McCabe's on that other February six 
 years before — the same little fur cap set coquettishly 
 on her chestnut curls, a soft, dark tippet about her white 
 throat, and carrying a huge muff. 
 
 Morland led the way at once toward that very spot 
 on Rock Creek where a few weeks before he had seen 
 
298 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 Kitty in the most delightful mood he had ever known her 
 in. This was to be a grim wooing — very likely a hard- 
 fought battle — but he would not deny himself some 
 of the accessories befitting more ordinary wooings and 
 which he believed, also, might be a help to him in the 
 coming contest; to say nothing of its being a spot where 
 on a winter's day they might reasonably hope to be safe 
 from all intrusion. 
 
 They walked swiftly and silently. Morland had no 
 small talk at his command; he was mentally marshalling 
 his forces for the coming attack, and Kitty's ready flow 
 of gay chatter was for once stemmed — pent up — by 
 Morland's manner, which she could not understand, 
 and which reduced her to a helpless condition very 
 unusual with her, and in which awe was the predomina- 
 ting sensation. 
 
 She was not, however, so entirely oblivious to her 
 surroundings as was Morland, and once, when two 
 women passed them and then turned and looked curiously 
 after them, Kitty was quite sure they were wondering 
 for what offense such a fine lady was being hurried off 
 to jail by the sheriff. But they were walking through 
 back streets and by-lanes and they did not meet many 
 people, and Kitty was in a mood to care almost as little for 
 the curious surmises of those they did meet as Morland. 
 
 The day was a clear, frosty one, cold enough to harden 
 the ground under their feet and to make Kitty's eyes 
 sparkle and her cheeks glow, but not cold enough to 
 occasion them any discomfort on their wintry walk. 
 John found the very heap of leaves under the spreading 
 chestnut on which Kitty had sat before, and taking off 
 from his great-coat the cape, which he did not always ' 
 
JOHN MORLAND 299 
 
 wear, but had worn to-day for this purpose, he spread 
 it over the leaves. 
 
 "Will you sit down, Kitty?" 
 
 Kitty obeyed silently, and then looked up at him 
 questioningly. 
 
 "Are you not going to sit down, too?" 
 
 "I believe not, just now. I have something very 
 serious to say, and I believe I can say it better standing." 
 
 He waited for a moment, but his speech had required 
 no answer, and Kitty made none. Perhaps she knew 
 what was coming, but she was not going to help him 
 out in it, though her heart under her pelisse was begin- 
 ning to flutter and throb. Morland was not waiting 
 for her answer, however; he was waiting for his own 
 resolution. He summoned it, finally, and went on, 
 but the effort required made him seem harsh and cold. 
 
 "It seems," he said, formally, "that I have been very 
 imprudent; that with the most innocent intentions in 
 the world I have sullied the good name of a lady whose 
 honour and fair fame are most dear to me. There is 
 but one way in which to prove the liars false and to 
 assert your innocence and my honour — will you accept 
 it, Kitty?" 
 
 This was no coy and blushing maiden listening to a 
 lover's vows. In Kitty's eyes were points of glowing 
 steel, and in her cheeks flamed the red ensign of anger. 
 
 "I do not understand you. Major Morland," she 
 said, coldly. 
 
 "Will you marry me, Kitty?" 
 
 "No!" 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Because you do not love -me. Because you do not 
 
300 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 care whether or not I love you. Because you only ask 
 me since you feel you must." 
 
 "You are wrong on every count, Kitty. But if you 
 were right in them all, the conditions would remain the 
 same — you miist marry me." 
 
 "I acknowledge no such alternative as compulsion 
 in such a matter," said Kitty. 
 
 "If I were to tell you that I love you very truly and 
 tenderly, Kitty; that to call you wife would be the 
 crowning honour and joy of my life, would you marry 
 me, then?" 
 
 "No, for I would not believe it." 
 
 "It is true, Kitty." 
 
 "And if it is true, I am not going to bring dishonour 
 on an honoured name; I am not going to bring ruin and 
 disgrace to a brilliant career." 
 
 " No, you are not going to do that, because you cannot. 
 You are going to add lustre to my career and honour to 
 my name. Will you marry me?" 
 
 But he had begun wrong and Kitty was obdurate. 
 The more he reasoned with her the more obstinate' she 
 grew, and the more convinced Morland became that she 
 not only did not love him, but did love some one else. 
 It was Montclair, he knew. But very well he knew, 
 also, that Montclair would never marry a woman of whom 
 he had spoken as he had spoken of Kitty to the Vir- 
 ginians. Nor did he believe he would marry any woman 
 who had not more money to bring with her than had 
 Kitty. Poor, and encumbered with a child, Morland 
 knew very well there was no hope of Montclair's ever 
 marrying her. If Montclair married any one it would 
 be Miss Dayton. There had been for years some 
 
JOHN MORLAND 301 
 
 secret understanding between those two, and Miss 
 Dayton was a rich woman in her own right. 
 
 Added to his own deep and ardent love for her, there- 
 fore, was a tender pity for Kitty that she should love not 
 only unworthily but in vain. He wondered for a moment 
 what argument he could find that would prove effective 
 in the face of this new obstacle. It had to be found — 
 he was not discouraged, but all the more determined 
 that she must marry him since he was convinced that 
 she loved Montclair. Then he remembered what he 
 had always believed true of Kitty — she was romantically 
 generous; and the way to convert her reason was to 
 appeal to her generosity. He was a proud man, and his 
 pride revolted against so degrading himself before Kitty, 
 but no means could be left untried to accomplish his 
 purpose — for Kitty's sake. 
 
 "Kitty," he began, a deep flush of shame reddening 
 his very temples, "you see before you a ruined man. 
 You had it in your power to save him from disgrace 
 and ruin, but you refused. The world believes that I 
 have very seriously compromised you; the world will 
 believe that I refuse to make you the only reparation 
 possible in such a case; the world will rightly despise and 
 scorn me as a man destitute of all sense and honour. I 
 have had ambitious dreams; a career seemed opening 
 before me that offered me every prize I most dearly 
 coveted; I must renounce it all since you refuse to 
 marry me. I have helped to elevate Jackson to the 
 Presidential chair, but I will not wait to see him take 
 his seat in it. I will return to my plantation at once 
 and spend there the remainder of my days in the ob- 
 scurity befitting a dishonoured man." 
 
302 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 He had been watching her narrowly as he spoke. Her 
 eyes, lifted to him at first, had quickly dropped and he 
 could see that she was deeply moved. She did not 
 answer for a moment, and he stood waiting with the 
 keenest anxiety he had yet known. He had played 
 his last card; if it failed he would have to carry out 
 exactly the programme he had outlined to Kitty; though 
 even that would not save her unless he carried her off 
 by force to share with him the obscurity of his Tennessee 
 plantation life. 
 
 She did not lift her eyes when at last she spoke. 
 
 "Major Morland," she said, so meekly that it cut 
 him to the heart in the gay, audacious Kitty, "would 
 you mind going off a little way among the trees and 
 leaving me alone for ten minutes? You can time me 
 by your watch and come back in exactly ten minutes, 
 and I will tell you then whether or not I will 
 marry you." 
 
 "I will do just as you say, Kitty," he said very gently, 
 and then he hesitated a little. "Kitty, look up at me 
 a moment, please." 
 
 But Kitty could not. She shook her head, ami 
 Morland saw the tears were welling out from under her 
 curling lashes. His heart ached for the struggle he 
 knew she was going through. He would help her a 
 little if he could. He half knelt beside her and took 
 the hand that lay listless in her lap and held it close in 
 both of his. 
 
 "Kitty," he said, gently, hesitating but determined, 
 "I know this will be no ordinary marriage. I know 
 you do not love me as a woman loves the man she would 
 marry, but I do not want you to be afraid of me. I 
 
JOHN MORLAND 303 
 
 shall not demand your love. I know you have always 
 thought of me more as a father or an elder brother. 
 Think of me so still, Kitty — I will never fail you. To 
 your little Janet I will be a father, to you I will be an 
 elder brother, but to the world we will both be vindi- 
 cated." 
 
 He dropped her hand with a quick, warm pressure, 
 sprang to his feet and hurried away without waiting 
 for her to speak. He sought a spot in the woods where 
 the thick underbrush, although bare of all foliage 
 except the tattered shreds the winter's storms had left 
 it, effectually screened him from Kitty, and with his 
 watch in his hand he strode up and down the narrow 
 limits he had set himself in an agitation too great to 
 permit of physical inaction. 
 
 The underbrush effectually screened Kitty also. 
 Morland could not see her throw herself passionately, 
 face down, among the leaves and sob for a few moments 
 as if her heart would break. He could not hear her half- 
 suppressed moans and her broken utterances: "He 
 does not love me!" "He pities me!" "I have ruined 
 him!" "It is the only way to save him!" 
 
 But after a few minutes given up to the abandon of 
 grief, Kitty sat up again and began to dry her eyes 
 and straighten her locks. She had come to a decision 
 now, and the last five minutes of the ten were spent 
 in trying to remove the traces of her agitation, and 
 to control the sobs that still at intervals broke from 
 her as the sobs of a grieved child long after it has 
 been pacified. 
 
 So successful was she that, as Morland once more 
 stood before her, there was scarcely a trace of the storm 
 
304 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 she had been through. Her lids were too thickly lashed 
 to allow of reddening, and she had purposely put into 
 her eyes the steely look that gave the lie to their more 
 than usual dewiness; and though her cheeks were still 
 a little flushed, the heightened colour only added to her 
 beauty. 
 
 She spoke quickly, the moment Morland had come 
 to a standstill before her, as if fearing her courage might 
 ooze out if she waited, and she spoke coldly : 
 
 "I have made my decision, Major Morland. I will 
 marry you." 
 
 Morland could not know that the steely glint in her 
 eyes was the steeliness of resolution, and that the cold- 
 ness of her manner was to cover her agitation. It 
 struck him to the heart. How often and how differently 
 had he pictured to himself this moment when she should 
 one day say, "I will marry you." There was no thought 
 now of taking her in his arms; no thought of a lover's 
 kisses; his only joyful sensation was the relief of know- 
 ing that Kitty was saved. She had risen to her feet as 
 she saw him approach, and she was standing now before 
 him the picture of proud disdain. She had need to 
 look proud, for never in her careless life had she so 
 suffered the pangs of abject humiliation. 
 
 "Thank you, Kitty," said Morland, quietly, not. 
 offering even to touch her hand. "And you will marry 
 me this evening? It is imperative." 
 
 "As well this evening as any other time, I suppose," 
 said Kitty, coldly. And then, in a flash, she relented, 
 as she saw the quick colour Morland could not restrain 
 spring to his face. 
 
 "Oh, forgive me, Major Morland," she cried, moving 
 
JOHN MORLAND 305 
 
 impulsively toward him, both hands outstretched. "I 
 
 am not ungrateful, and I would not hurt you for worlds." 
 
 He took her hands in his, lifted them to his lips, then 
 
 held them close while he said, brokenly: "My little 
 
 Kitty, you shall never repent it " and for the life 
 
 of him could not utter another word. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 IN THE WOODS AT BLADENSBURG 
 
 THE walk home was almost as silent and quite as 
 swift as the walk to Rock Creek had been. It 
 was growing dusk of the short winter day, and there 
 was still much for Morland to do. 
 
 He left Kitty at the door of McCabe's. It had been 
 arranged between them that she should tell her father 
 and mother that she was to be married that evening to 
 Major Morland, and that at eight o'clock Morland 
 would appear with the clergyman. Now, as he left 
 Kitty, his first errand was to find the clergyman; it must 
 be the rector of St. John's, he supposed, and the rector 
 lived in Georgetown nearly four miles away. He 
 walked hurriedly over to the near-by stable, where he kept 
 his horses, ordered Selim saddled at once and at the same 
 time, that there might be no slip in the arrangements 
 for the duel, gave his orders to have him saddled and 
 ready the next morning by a quarter before seven, when 
 he would call for him. 
 
 The sun had just set as he galloped rapidly west 
 toward Georgetown. It was a cloudless evening, and 
 in a clear orange sky hung the pale gold crescent of a 
 slender new moon. As he rode farther the hanging 
 coppices of Greorgetown Heights were outlined against 
 the afterglow — now turning from clear orange to tawny 
 red — in an intricate network of bare limbs and delicate 
 
 306 
 
THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 307 
 
 twigs and branches. He felt the rush of the frosty 
 evening air against his face and the hot turmoil of his 
 thoughts began to subside. After all, it was God's 
 world, and just as surely as He had set that golden 
 crescent in the glowing western sky to draw men's thoughts 
 to the peace and beauty above and about them, just so 
 surely could He bring peace and joy and beauty into 
 disordered lives, if the faces were but set toward them. 
 He and Kitty had begun badly — he felt it to his heart's 
 core — but they would turn their faces toward Him, 
 and all would be well in the end. 
 
 He was greatly troubled. This hurried marriage was 
 not at all to his taste, and that Kitty had to be forced 
 into it so evidently against her will hurt him exceedingly. 
 Moreover, while, for the time, the thought of the im- 
 pending duel had been pushed into the background 
 by the stress of more immediate and compelling in- 
 terests, it was there, ready to seize and overwhelm him 
 at any unguarded moment. He could not refuse to 
 recognize the element of uncertainty, and he looked 
 at all the details of the beautiful winter twilight — the 
 delicate tracery of bare trees against the dying glow 
 of the west; the fair young moon; the sweep of the river, 
 a pale yellow in the sunset light; the empurpled hills 
 of the Virginia shore fast changing to a sombre gray — 
 with a curious sensation that it was quite possible he 
 was looking on them all for the last time. 
 
 Nothing could have been more soothing to his troubled 
 spirit than this swift ride through the calm of the winter 
 twilight to Georgetown and back. It was quite dark 
 by the time he reached the door of McCabe's again, 
 Sind dinner had long been over. He had not thought 
 
308 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 of it in the hurry and rush of his emotions, but it had 
 been hours since he had eaten, and he realized that he 
 began to feel the exhaustion of hunger. He found 
 Jeff waiting for him in his room and sent him for a 
 sandwich and a glass of wine. Jeff had been in great 
 distress about his master this afternoon. He knew 
 something very unusual was pending, for never before 
 had he known the dignified young Senator, as deliberate 
 in his actions as the most deliberate of Southerners, to 
 rush with feverish haste from one errand to another, 
 scarcely calling on him for any assistance, and forgetting 
 even the hour for dinner, so rigidly observed in the 
 McCabe household. 
 
 It was no sandwich and a glass of wine he was going 
 to fetch his master; he had an inviting little dinner all 
 ready in the kitchen to be popped into broiler and oven, 
 and in an incredibly short time he returned bearing a 
 huge tray with the little dinner temptingly arrayed upon 
 it and smoking hot. Morland, with the consciousness 
 that all his experiences might easily be last ones, was 
 touched to the quick by this little proof of his faithful 
 slave's devotion. Something swelled in his throat, and 
 for the moment he could do nothing more than signal 
 to Jeff, by a curt gesture, to set the tray down, while 
 he pretended to be deep in some papers conveniently 
 open on his desk. 
 
 But he recovered control of himself quickly and 
 sat down gaily before his little feast; and if he did not 
 eat much he made great pretense of it, and carried on 
 such a continuous strain of jest and joke with Jeff — 
 after the manner of the old-time freedom between 
 master and man — that Jeff did not discover that he 
 
JOHN MORLAND 309 
 
 had barely nibbled at his delicious chops and broiled 
 oysters and hot biscuit. The fact was that he was 
 labouring under a tremendous excitement; and it was 
 no fear of that hateful duel that was making it impossible 
 for him to touch food, and setting every nerve quivering 
 and the blood racing through his veins and surging in 
 his brain and pounding in his temples. No, it was 
 the one overmastering thought that in little more than 
 an hour Kitty would be Kitty Morland, and whether 
 it was dread or unreasoning joy that had set his brain 
 on fire, he could not for the life of him tell. 
 
 But there were few outward signs of his excitement 
 when with a quick "I have no time for any more, 
 Jeff," he pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. 
 There was no trace, either, of his jesting manner of a 
 few moments before. He spoke with that dignity he 
 knew so well how to assume on occasion, and that always 
 inspired Jeff with a feeling akin to awe: 
 
 " I am to be married, Jeff, at eight o'clock this evening 
 to Mistress Sutherland. You will help me to dress 
 as quickly as possible, and then you may dress yourself 
 and be present at the ceremony in Mrs. McCabe's 
 parlour." 
 
 Jeff's eyes rolled wildly, but he did not dare utter a 
 word. His master, with that deep glow in his dark 
 blue eyes and that wonderful vibration in his voice, 
 was a young god in Jeff's eyes, and spoke with the voice 
 and the authority of one. 
 
 He had somewhat of the same effect on Kitty when, 
 on the stroke of eight, he entered Mrs. McCabe's parlour. 
 The clergyman was already there, talking to Kitty, and 
 as Morland stood a moment at the door she looked up 
 
310 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 at him, caught the deep glow in his eyes, and feeling 
 herself wrapped for j^n instant in the white flame of his 
 glance, that for that instant he could not control, 
 trembled and let her eyes fall before him. 
 
 His instant's pause, his glowing glance, both alike 
 involuntary, had been evoked by a vision of Kitty as 
 unexpected as it was dazzling. For nearly a year he 
 had seen her only in black, and it had not occurred to 
 him that there would be any impropriety in marrying 
 one husband while wearing mourning for the other. 
 It had occurred to Kitty, of course, and with a native 
 sense of delicacy neither did it seem to her quite appro- 
 priate to wear the bridal white she had worn for Lieu- 
 tenant Sutherland. She had hit on a happy mean and 
 was wearing a soft and shimmering gray. It was a dress of 
 her mother's, and gave Kitty something of the spirituelle 
 beauty of her mother. She was like a glorious goddess 
 softened for the sight of mortal eyes by being veiled in 
 a delicate gray mist. No wonder Morland's eyes for the 
 moment betrayed him. 
 
 But he had himself under rigid control through the 
 ceremony and through the evening that followed. Or, 
 rather, through the evening that followed he seemed 
 to have removed all restraint from his manner; he was 
 the gay and charming friend of Kitty's early recollections. 
 Affectionately deferential, as always, to Mrs. McCabe, 
 he was by turns friendly, fatherly, brotherly to Kitty. 
 Teasing her, scolding her, admiring her, but with never 
 a hint of the lover. If Kitty had dreaded this ordeal, 
 nothing could have been more reassuring than his tactics. 
 Janet, an angel in fluffy white, had been allowed to stay 
 up to see her mother married, and after the ceremony 
 
JOHN MORLAND 311 
 
 Morland and she had had a grand romp together, and 
 then Morland had himself called Emmeline and sent 
 her off to bed with a whimsical assumption of authority 
 that delighted Janet and made the others smile — as he 
 intended. 
 
 Mrs. McCabe watched him through the evening with 
 shining eyes. She did not understand the suddenness 
 of this marriage, and she would have greatly preferred 
 to have it postponed until the year of mourning was 
 over; but it was what she had been secretly hoping for 
 during the last months, and what she had secretly and 
 ardently desired for Kitty, before Kitty had ever met 
 Lieutenant Sutherland. Now, at last, she felt that her 
 wayward child was in safe hands, and the ugly gossip 
 that she had guessed at, but of the extent of which she 
 did not dream, would be stilled. 
 
 Morland had seized a moment when Kitty and her 
 father and the clergyman were talking together to say 
 quietly to Mrs. McCabe that the wedding had been 
 more sudden than either he or Kitty had anticipated, 
 and he would have to leave her in her mother's hands 
 for a few days until he could find suitable rooms to 
 which to take her. Tim, who was pompously impor- 
 tant, and glowing with satisfaction in having a distin- 
 guished senator for a son-in-law, being informed by his 
 wife that Kitty was to remain, for the present, in her 
 old quarters, thought he was doing a delicate and 
 suitable thing to say quite audibly to his wife at 
 ten o'clock: "My dear, no doubt the newly-wedded 
 pair would like a few moments to themselves; shall we 
 withdraw?" 
 
 Morland overheard him, as was intended. 
 
312 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 "Oh, don't go," he said, and smiling at Kitty. "Kitty 
 and I have said it all — haven't we, Kitty?" 
 
 Kitty said "Yes," and Morland went on to say that 
 he must be bidding good-night since he had some 
 neglected work to attend to. He shook hands cordially 
 with Tim, kissed Mrs. McCabe with real tenderness and 
 respect and said in her ear: "Take care of my Kitty, 
 Mother," and then came to Kitty. 
 
 It would never do not to kiss her good-night, with 
 her father and mother looking on — the clergyman had 
 long since gone — but would Kitty like it? Like it 
 or not, he would kiss her, and not merely for form's sake. 
 If Montclair's bullet did its duty to-morrow morning 
 it would be his last kiss — the only one he would ever 
 give his wife. 
 
 He looked at her a moment with ardent eyes, fixing 
 the beautiful vision indelibly in his memory; Kitty could 
 not endure his gaze unmoved; her own eyes drooped, 
 and blushing and trembling she stood before him the 
 picture of a young and loving wife. It was too much 
 for Morland's resolution. He had meant only to take 
 her hand and touch her cheek with his lips; Kitty might 
 be a consummate coquette or an accomplished actor 
 keeping up appearances, but for the moment he believed 
 neither; and taking her in his arms with a strength and 
 passion he was little conscious of, he kissed her full in 
 the lips, whispered " Grood-bye — my wife," and hur- 
 riedly left the room. 
 
 In the cold dawn of the next morning Morland and 
 Randolph were riding side by side up the Eastern 
 Branch of the Potomac toward Bladensburg, and a few 
 
JOHN MORLAND 313 
 
 paces behind them rode Jeff with hanging head. Jeff 
 had guessed what this important business must be that 
 necessitated his getting his master up at this unusual 
 hour; and when Randolph appeared to accompany 
 him, and they took the road to the well-known duelling 
 ground, then Jeff was sure, and rode with sorrow at 
 his heart, but a faint hope, also, that his hurried con- 
 ference with Emmeline in the early morning might yet 
 bear fruit. 
 
 The road was roughened to their horses' feet by a hard 
 frost, and the white rime lay heavy on the straggling 
 stalks of last summer's flowers that bordered their way, 
 on the long line of fence rails, and on the trunks and 
 branches and the dead leaves pendant from them of the 
 great oaks that began to thicken about their path as 
 they entered the Bladensburg woods. Randolph was 
 talking steadily, trying to divert his friend from gloomy 
 thoughts, and Morland had every appearance of listening 
 and making suitable responses. But he was horribly 
 depressed. The whole affair was so distasteful to him, 
 and by the clear light of day, momentarily growing 
 clearer, it seemed so needless. But for the white heat 
 of anger into which he had been betrayed he would 
 have taken the truly sensible course — called Montclair 
 aside and told him he must retract his lying words to 
 his friends or he would be publicly horsewhipped. There 
 was no question in Morland's mind that Montclair 
 would not have retracted; he knew the cowardly nature 
 of the man. 
 
 And the pity of it I To be throwing away his life just 
 when it had reached its glorious zenith, with Kitty and a 
 seat in the cabinet both his! For he had quite decided 
 
314 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 he would not come out of that duel alive, since he had 
 also decided that, although he had been guilty of the 
 foolishness of compelling Montclair to this duel, he 
 would not be guilty of the crime of attempting his life 
 — he would fire into the air. 
 
 Their path was now only a woodland trail leading 
 down to the ravine in which lay the duelling grounds. 
 Randolph was explaining his plan. Should the other 
 second win the choice of position and he win the right 
 to give the word, then he intended to follow the plan 
 Jackson's second had followed in the notable duel with 
 Dickinson. He should order them to point their pistols 
 to the ground, and at his one word "Fire!" they should 
 raise their pistols and fire. It had worked well for 
 Jackson in an encounter with a man of almost unerring 
 aim; it should work better for Morland, since he did not 
 believe Montclair to be a wonderful shot, and he did 
 believe that he had so little nerve as to be easily flustered 
 and thrown off his balance by the sudden, sharp 
 command. 
 
 Morland listened and offered no objection. He 
 would not tell Randolph that all his scheming was in 
 vain, since he intended to fire into the air and would 
 have to stand up and be shot at in cold blood; he was 
 feeling so dull and spiritless it mattered little to him 
 how it was to be done. But he roused himself when he 
 reached the open glade where the ravine broadened to 
 make an ideal spot for such encounters : shut in by rising 
 ground on both sides with all danger of intrusion pre- 
 vented and any noise of the conflict deadened. The 
 sun had risen by this time and the little stream that 
 flowed over its rocky bed through the ravine caught 
 
JOHN MORLAND 315 
 
 the glint of its beams where its waters tumbled noisily 
 into a deep pool on whose still surface had gathered a 
 film of ice. It was a cheery little stream, and its gay 
 chattering and the bright glitter of the morning sun 
 insensibly brightened Morland's spirits. Montclair won 
 the choice of position, and said boastingly to his second 
 and loud enough to heard by Morland: "Luck is with 
 me, as usual." He had been drinking heavily to keep 
 up his spirits, and it showed in his silly swagger and 
 foolish vauntings, evidently an annoyance to his second, 
 who was, no doubt, a gentleman, and who tried to keep 
 him within bounds. 
 
 The two seconds withdrew to a little distance for a 
 moment's conference. It was Randolph who had re- 
 quested it; more and more it seemed to him a crime to 
 risk a valuable life like Morland's in such a senseless 
 quarrel — as Randolph would always regard any quarrel 
 over a woman — or at the hands of a man so unworthy 
 as he had supposed Montclair to be, and as he was 
 showing himself this morning. 
 
 "Mr. Tazewell," said Randolph, when they found 
 themselves at a discreet distance, "is there no possibility 
 of putting a stop to this without recourse to pistols? 
 Can't you persuade your man to apologize?" 
 
 "The apology would have to come from your side, since 
 there is where the offence was given," said the Virginian, 
 stiffly. 
 
 "I do not believe you thoroughly understand the 
 rights of the case," persisted Randolph, struggling to 
 keep his quick temper under control. "I do not believe 
 you know either Mr. Montclair or Senator Morland. 
 Suppose, sir, you had overheard such words spoken 
 
316 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 about you and a lady you esteemed, and knew them to 
 be lies, what could you have done?" 
 
 "If I had known them to be lies, sir," with a signifi- 
 cant emphasis, "I could have done no less than Senator 
 Morland, but I understand the matter has long been 
 common talk, and the world, at least, believes them 
 true." 
 
 "Then the world believes a lie," said Randolph, hotly. 
 "There is no more honourable gentleman in Washington 
 than Senator Morland, and Mistress Sutherland is a silly 
 little woman he has known from her childhood, and has 
 tried to protect from Montclair's base designs, and in 
 so doing has got himself talked of. The Widow Suther- 
 land's husband was his friend, and trusted and loved 
 him to the last. If the world believes that Senator 
 Morland is responsible for his suicide then it believes 
 so because Montclair has insidiously and persistently 
 circulated such a lie." 
 
 "Sir," said the Virginian, after a moment's troubled 
 silence, "if I could believe you were not deceived, if I 
 could possibly believe my principal was such a scoundrel, 
 I would take no further part in this — Mr. Montclair 
 would have to look elsewhere for a second." 
 
 "You have my word, sir," said Randolph, proudly. 
 
 "And I cannot doubt the word of John Randolph, 
 of Roanoke," interrupted the Virginian, quickly, "only 
 it is possible, I suppose, that he could be mistaken, 
 and I do not see my way clear to recede from my present 
 position." 
 
 Randolph bowed. 
 
 "Very well, sir, then we will go on with it," grimly. 
 And turning to Jeff, who was hovering anxiously near 
 
JOHN MORLAND 317 
 
 and trying to attract his attention, he spoke irritably: 
 "What is it, Jeff?" 
 
 '"Scuse me, Marse Randolph, but I tole Mrs. Mor- 
 land's yallow girl, Emmeline, this mornin', that I done 
 think thar 's gwine to be a duel. An' ef she tole her 
 missus, Mrs. Morland '11 be here soon, shore; an' p'raps, 
 that '11 stop it." 
 
 "Mrs. Morland!" exclaimed Randolph. "Of whom 
 are you talking, Jeff?" 
 
 "Oh, good Lord!" exclaimed Jeff, terrified and rolling 
 his eyes wildly in the direction of a distant glimpse of 
 Morland's dark figure among the trees. "He neber tole 
 me not to tell. Did en' you know Marse Morland an' 
 Miss Kitty wuz married las' night?" 
 
 Randolph was too astounded for words, for a moment, 
 but the Virginian broke in excitedly: 
 
 "Senator Morland married to the lady in dispute! 
 This puts an entirely different light on the matter. If 
 he has wronged her he has made the only reparation 
 possible. I do not object to presenting this view of it 
 to my principal, and I think he might be willing to apolo- 
 gize for using such words of Senator Morland's wife." 
 
 Randolph shook his head sadly. 
 
 "I hope you will try, Mr. Tazewell, but it seems to 
 me there is but little choice between dying at the hands 
 of such a scoundrel as Montclair and being tied for life 
 to such a vain and silly woman as the Widow Sutherland. 
 He has thrown away his life in either case, and he had 
 a great future before him." 
 
 Then, suddenly lifting his head and flinging back his 
 long hair with his old familiar gesture, he screamed in 
 his shrill tones: 
 
318 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 "A mistaken idea of chivalry, sir! God only knows 
 what is to become of a country when its finest men are 
 continually at the mercy of such foolish creatures!" 
 
 The Virginian knew John Randolph by reputation, 
 and only by a tremendous effort could he repress a smile 
 at this characteristic speech. He succeeded, however. 
 
 "Shall we try what we can do, sir?" he said, soberly, 
 with a courteous gesture, giving Randolph prece- 
 dence in their return to Morland and Montclair. 
 
 Hardly were the words out of his mouth when they 
 were both startled by the rapid firing of pistols, and a 
 moment later the clatter of a horse's hoofs. The three 
 men started on a run, Jeff well in the lead, and Randolph 
 anathematizing himself at every step for having left 
 Morland alone at the mercy of such a scoundrel; for 
 not for a moment did he doubt that Montclair had 
 seized this opportunity to shoot Morland in cold blood, 
 and the clatter of hoofs was his fleeing horse bearing 
 him away in shameful flight. 
 
 Morland and Montclair had been left to themselves 
 for nearly twenty minutes. Morland, not caring to be 
 nearer than necessary to Montclair who, in his present 
 half-drunken insolence, was more intolerable than ever, 
 had walked off to a little distance where a flat rock under 
 a spreading oak offered a convenient seat. For the first 
 few minutes he had been lost in a revery of those who 
 had gone before him in that place; who had, on other 
 wintry dawns, ridden over the same road; some of them 
 to meet in the Bladensburg woods the grim messenger, 
 and some of them to leave the Bladensburg woods in 
 flight from disgrace and remorse. Most of all, he 
 
JOHN MORLAND 319 
 
 thought of the brilliant Decatur, laid low on that very 
 spot, and how his antagonist was only now beginning 
 to recover from the odium of having slain him. 
 
 But his thoughts did not linger long with such grue- 
 some companions; they flew back to Kitty as swiftly and 
 surely as homing birds. Would she be sorry for his death ? 
 Kitty and he had been comrades for years; she could 
 not but mourn him a little for the sake of old friendship, 
 but, perhaps, too, she would be relieved to be set free 
 from a hateful tie. She was awake now — was she think- 
 ing of him — her new husband ? Or was she, possibly, 
 thinking of Montclair — his hated rival, as Morland 
 firmly believed him. 
 
 He glanced at Montclair. He was pacing restlessly 
 to and fro still with a determined swagger, but Morland 
 also thought with something of the effect of faltering 
 in his gait. Was his courage oozing out? He had 
 come near Morland in his restless pacing, and meeting 
 his glance he halted. 
 
 "I don't see what our seconds are about," he growled 
 with an oath. "See here, Senator Morland, I propose 
 that, since they have left us to ourselves, we settle it for 
 ourselves. What do you say to each of us taking a try 
 from the foot of this rock at that single red leaf on the 
 topmost branch of that oak bush yonder ? The one who 
 fails to hit it shall apologize to the other and consider 
 the matter settled." 
 
 Morland stared at him blankly. He could not for a 
 moment take in such a preposterous proposition. But 
 the man's teeth were fairly chattering, and his face 
 was going from a sickly white to a cadaverous yellow. 
 Morland knew that Montclair was in no danger from 
 
320 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 his gun, but Montclair could not know it, and the agonies 
 of fear, no doubt, were worse than death. Why not 
 settle it in that way ? It had been all a hideous mistake 
 from the beginning, and this manner of settling it could 
 not be sillier than he had always considered a recourse 
 to the duel. And then, suddenly, without warning, 
 his heart gave one exultant throb — he would still be 
 living, and living for Kitty! 
 
 "Mr. Montclair," he said, quietly, after a moment's 
 deliberation, "this is a very unusual proposal, but with 
 one slight modification I am willing to agree to it. If 
 I hit the leaf you shall apologize to me and tell your 
 friends that you lied; but if you hit it, although I will 
 not apologize, I will consider the matter settled without 
 your apology." 
 
 "All right, any way you want to fix it, only for God's 
 sake be quick about it or that fire-eating Virginian will 
 be back and insist on our carrying out the regulations." 
 
 Morland smiled inwardly. No doubt Montclair had 
 been seeking a way out of it before, and his friend would 
 not let him off. 
 
 "But we have no pistols," he demurred. 
 
 "Yes," said Montclair, "I forgot to remove mine 
 when I left home, and I always carry two." 
 
 He took them from his pockets as he spoke and 
 handed one to Morland. It was impossible to prevent 
 a hateful suspicion flashing through Morland's mind. 
 He had never been aware of this habit of Montclair's 
 of going around always with two pistols in his pockets, and 
 to forget such an important detail of the arrangements 
 as removing them in preparation for the duel seemed 
 incredible carelessness. But he said nothing, only took 
 
"HIS FACE WAS LIVID 
 
 'NO ONE EVER TOLD ME YOU WERE 
 
 SUCH A DEAD SHOT ' " 
 
JOHN MORLAND 321 
 
 the pistol from Montclair's hand with a feeling of cold 
 loathing as toward a reptile. 
 
 "I think I should shoot first, since it is my proposition," 
 Montclair demanded, querulously, evidently in hot haste 
 lest the seconds should return. 
 
 "Certainly, if you wish," Morland acquiesced, coolly. 
 
 Montclair stepped quickly to the base of the rock, 
 raised his pistol with such trembling eagerness that he 
 could not wait to take aim, and fired. The red leaf 
 still fluttered gently in the morning breeze. He uttered 
 an impatient oath, and stepped back. Morland deter- 
 mined to give him a little scare — he would show him 
 what his fate might have been. He stepped quickly to 
 his place, raised his pistol high in the air, and as he 
 dropped it, fired — a spectacular trick he had learned 
 from his Tennessee rangers. The red leaf no longer 
 waved in the morning breeze. Montclair's pistol dropped 
 from his nerveless hand, his face was livid. 
 
 "My God, Morland!" ,he exclaimed, involuntarily. 
 "No one ever told me you were such a dead shot!" 
 
 "I rarely miss," said Morland, calmly, quite willing 
 to keep up the scare, and walking toward the oak bush 
 as he spoke. At the bush he turned. 
 
 "I have shot it quite off; there is not a vestige of it 
 left. I am ready to receive your apology, Mr. Montclair." 
 He drew himself up as he spoke and uttered the words 
 grimly. 
 
 It was at this moment that Kitty on Brown Bess 
 dashed recklessly down the rocky ravine and came in 
 sight of the two men, drawn up, as she supposed, pistols 
 in hand, and only waiting for the word to fire. Was 
 she too late! "Oh, God, help me even yet to save him," 
 
322 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 she breathed, and rising in her stirrup lifted her clear 
 voice in a high, strong call: "Don't fire! Wait for me!" 
 
 The two men stood as if petrified at such an unex- 
 pected apparition, and in an instant Brown Bess had 
 carried her between them, and she had flung herself 
 from Brown Bess's back and the mare, as if knowing 
 she was in the way, trotted gently off to a little distance 
 and began to browse quietly on the brown tufts of dry 
 winter herbage. 
 
 At the first sight of Kitty Morland had turned to 
 stone. How came she there! Who had told her? 
 She must have cared for one of them, at least. And 
 then his heart sickened within him, for it was to Mont- 
 clair she turned, and not to him. Seeing which, Mont- 
 clair, no longer tormented by base fears, began to inso- 
 lently strut again. 
 
 "Ah, the fair Kitty!" he exclaimed with detestable 
 familiarity. "You are just in time, Kitty, to save my 
 life, which I was about to risk in your behalf! " 
 
 He was still speaking when the two seconds, with 
 Jeff, came running up, in time to see and to hear Kitty; 
 and to his dying day the young Virginian never forgot 
 the superb scorn of that magnificent creature. Her whole 
 form dilating with it, her eyes flaming with it, she hurled 
 her white-hot words at the craven who cowered and 
 shriveled before them. 
 
 "Never speak to me again as long as you live, sir! 
 I know not the cause of this quarrel, but I can guess 
 you have spoken some lying words of me which my 
 high-minded husband has felt compelled to resent. You 
 dare to fight a duel with the most honourable man in 
 Washington! Let him order his black man to horse- 
 
JOHN MORLAND 323 
 
 whip you in our presence — that is the only satisfaction 
 he should be willing to give you. Duelling is for gen- 
 tlemen!" 
 
 Montclair could not stand the scorching flame of her 
 words and her eyes; he visibly shriveled under them, 
 and, utterly bewildered by her words "My husband," 
 turned and began to slink away. As soon as Kitty 
 saw that she need no longer fear anything for Morland 
 from Montclair, she too turned and began to walk 
 slowly toward her husband. Morland did not move 
 from his place, but all his heart was in his eyes, arid his 
 eyes were on Kitty walking slowly toward him and 
 looking up at him half afraid that he might not have 
 liked her coming. He waited until she was only a few 
 paces from him, then he stepped quickly forward and, 
 extending his hand, drew Kitty's arm through his, and 
 turned to the two seconds. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said quietly, but with a thrill of elation 
 he could not control deepening his tones, "will you 
 permit the proudest and the happiest man in Washington 
 to present to you his wife — Mistress Morland!" 
 
CHAPTER m 
 
 AT MONTEREY 
 
 I CONSIDER my duty to Mr. Montclair discharged, 
 and I hereby publicly refuse to have any further 
 relations with a man so utterly devoid of honour as he 
 has proved himself to be. May I accompany you and 
 your bride on your return to Washington?" 
 
 The Virginian was in a white heat. Morland had 
 compelled Montclair, hastily shrinking out of sight 
 under cover of Kitty's presentation as Mistress Morland, 
 to return and make a full recantation and apology. What 
 became of him afterward none of the four knew or cared. 
 Jeff brought up their horses, and two and two they 
 rode quietly back to Washington through the crisp 
 morning air, Jeff ambling joyously in the rear, his black 
 face shining with delight and self-gratulations; for had 
 it not been his forethought in warning Emmeline that had 
 saved his master's life? 
 
 Morland had not explained the pistol shots and the 
 Don Quixoteish duel of the oak leaf, partly because he 
 did not wish to detract from Kitty's joy in feeling that 
 she had saved the situation, and partly because — 
 within hearing of Montclair — he did not care to tell 
 the absurd tale; he did not believe in striking even a 
 dog when he was down. He was inwardly smiling 
 over it, however, and saving it for a good story to tell 
 to the two seconds when he should some day get them 
 
 324 
 
THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 325 
 
 to himself. Now he was riding by Kitty's side, and 
 though there was little opportunity for any words meant 
 for her ear alone he found a chance to say to her hesi- 
 tatingly: 
 
 "Kitty, did you mean all you said of me toMontclair? 
 You must care for me a little if you believe such extrava- 
 gant things of me." 
 
 " I have always thought of you in that way — almost 
 ever since I can remember," said Kitty, quietly. 
 
 Morland glanced at her. She was looking pale, he 
 thought, and her eyes were down. There was reason 
 enough for the pallor — this early morning ride, break- 
 fastless, and the excitement she had been through were 
 suflScient explanation. Well, he would not tease her. 
 His foolish elation was gone, but it ought to be joy 
 enough to him to have received this proof that Kitty 
 was of the stuff he had always believed her to be — 
 that when the test came she would never fail. 
 
 The unusual languor and quiet of her manner con- 
 tinued all through the homeward ride. The Virginian, 
 who dropped back beside her once or twice, thought her 
 most attractive in this mood, and, also, most unlike the 
 idea he had formed from report of the gay Widow 
 Sutherland. He was inclined to believe she had been 
 much maligned, and was more than ever ashamed of 
 having been trapped into supporting her arch traducer. 
 
 Randolph and the Virginian left Morland and Kitty 
 at the door of McCabe's. As Morland was lifting her 
 from her horse Kitty looked up at him shyly. 
 
 "If you will come to mother's room in half an hour," 
 she said, " we can have breakfast together. I 'm sure 
 you must need it." 
 
326 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 Morland was ravished by this shy, bewitching Kitty. 
 It was a mood he hardly knew her in, and it was the 
 most enchanting of all her moods, he said to himself. 
 But every vestige of it had disappeared when, in half 
 an hour, he came down to Mrs. McCabe's parlour and 
 found a cozy breakfast-table set for three. A quiet 
 word from Mrs. McCabe assured him of her grateful 
 happiness in seeing him with them again unhurt, and 
 convinced him that Emmeline had betrayed the cause 
 of Kitty's absence at the breakfast hour. Whether it 
 was the natural reaction from such a strain as the three 
 had been under for hours — for Mrs. McCabe, watching 
 at home alone, had suffered almost as much as Kitty — 
 it was a gay little breakfast with the spirits of the three 
 at the highest point. There was no sign of the pensive 
 languor Kitty had shown on her way home. She was 
 sparkling, gay with little sallies, alternately demure and 
 audacious. 
 
 "I suppose I must call you Mr. Morland now," 
 she said, demurely. It would never do for me to say 
 
 'Senator' or 'Major.'" 
 
 "Of course not," said Morland, delighted by her 
 
 ready assumption of wifely prerogatives. 
 
 " And since I 'm a bride I must have a trousseau. 
 
 Mamma, you and I will have to go shopping." 
 
 "Oh, you will have to have a very grand trousseau, 
 
 indeed," said Morland, enjoying the surprise he was 
 
 about to give her, "for the wife of a Cabinet minister 
 
 belongs to the innermost court circle, you know, and 
 
 must dress her part." 
 
 "A Cabinet minister!" exclaimed Kitty and her 
 
 mother in concert. 
 
JOHN MORLAND 327 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Morland, nonchalantly, "had n't 
 I mentioned it ? I 'm to be Minister of War. But 
 it 's not announced yet, and you must neither of you 
 breathe it until I give you leave." 
 
 "Oh, ohl" said Kitty, clapping her hands rapturously 
 like a happy child. "I 'm so glad I married you. I 
 never thought I would be the wife of a Cabinet minister." 
 
 Mrs. McCabe and Morland smiled at her raptures. 
 There was nothing ofPensively mercenary in them to 
 either of these fond adorers of Kitty; nothing more than 
 the naive happiness of a child pleased with a new toy. 
 
 "What will people say now!" she went on delightedly. 
 "Kitty McCabe taking precedence of half the grand 
 dames in Washington!" 
 
 A little cloud darkened Morland's happiness for a 
 moment. That was just what he was afraid of — what 
 would people say! Not, of course, that he cared for 
 himself, but for Jackson's administration. 
 
 Kitty did not see the cloud, and her thoughts had 
 danced gaily on to another point. 
 
 "You said you were going to look for rooms to-day. 
 I don't think it at all proper for a Cabinet minister and 
 his wife to be living in rooms. It 's the grandest house 
 in Washington you should be looking for." 
 
 "Sure enough, Kitty. How wise you are! Already 
 you know more about the duties of your new position 
 than I do. I 'm a stupid old fellow, but I see I 've 
 done a good thing to secure such a clever little helpmate 
 in my new honours. I '11 tell you what we '11 do : If 
 you and your mother have finished breakfast I '11 send 
 Jeff for a carriage and we '11 start out house-hunting 
 at once." 
 
328 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 "Oh, how lovely!" said Kitty, starting up to run 
 away and make herself ready; but at the door she stopped. 
 
 "Oh, that reminds me," turning a laughing face to 
 Morland, " we '11 have to have a carriage and horses 
 of our own now, I suppose; you have only riding horses, 
 have n't you?" 
 
 Morland groaned in pretended dismay. 
 
 "I easily see you are going to ruin me with your ex- 
 travagant tastes, Mistress Morland," he mocked. "Run 
 away, please, and don't think up any new thousand- 
 dollar expenditures before you get your bonnet on." 
 
 But Kitty, who knew his purse was a long one, was 
 not abashed. 
 
 "Oh, but I will," she nodded, insubordinately, "I've 
 already thought of two or three more I '11 tell you about 
 when I come down. You '11 live to rue the day you ever 
 married such an extravagant little piece of baggage as 
 Kitty McCabe," and ran away laughing. 
 
 The result of their house-hunting was that they found one 
 of the beautiful old Georgetown places about to be vacated 
 by a retiring member of the old cabinet, and Kitty was 
 given carte blanche as to furnishings, and between 
 ordering and fitting gorgeous new gowns, and selecting 
 upholsterings and carpets and curtains and furnishings 
 of all kinds, she must needs keep that little head of hers 
 quite steady on her beautiful shoulders not to be utterly 
 bewildered. In the excitement of it all she found little 
 time to think of Morland, and Morland saw almost 
 nothing of his new wife. He was tremendously absorbed 
 in Jackson's affairs, as Inauguration Day drew near, 
 and Kitty, who secretly wanted to surprise him by letting 
 
JOHN MORLAND 329 
 
 the splendour of her beautiful gowns and beautiful 
 house burst on him undimmed by preliminary discussions, 
 made the plea of not wishing to " bother" him as an excuse 
 for not consulting him. There had been one exciting 
 trip to New York for the sake of procuring certain 
 marvels for both toilet and house that Washington could 
 not furnish. It was the first time that Kitty had been 
 there since her school-days, and neither Kitty nor her 
 mother had ever before braved the perils of the long 
 stage-coach journey without a man to protect them. 
 But by taking a stage very early in the morning they 
 could be in New York by the evening of the second day, 
 and so be out but one night. Kitty felt herself quite 
 equal to looking out for herself and her mother, and to 
 Mrs. McCabe the joy of taking a trip alone with Kitty 
 
 — of having her entirely to herself for a whole week — 
 more than compensated for the fatigues or terrors of 
 the journey. 
 
 To go to the great City Hotel in New York, wonderful 
 in its appointments to both of them, to visit together 
 the great shops on Cortlandt Street and Broadway, to 
 turn over costly laces and silks and velvets and choose 
 at will with no fear of depleting a well-filled pocket; 
 to buy three perfect loves of bonnets and absolutely 
 make her mother let her buy one for herself also; to select 
 a massive mahogany dining-room buffet, chairs, and 
 table, and real lace curtains and a Broadwood piano 
 for the drawing-room; these and a thousand other delights 
 
 — the crowded streets, brilliantly lighted with gas at 
 night, a never-failing joy and wonder to Kitty and her 
 mother, used only to the smoky oil lamps of Washington; 
 the gay shops, the beautiful women, the elegantly 
 
330 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 dressed men staring boldly at the lovely Kitty — filled 
 Kitty's days with joy and her nights with happy dreams. 
 
 And then there was the perilous journey to be under- 
 taken again, and the joy of feeling that her return was 
 an event of some consequence, to be heralded certainly 
 in the Telegraph, if not in the other papers. If there 
 was another joy to be looked forward to, the joy of 
 meeting a man that half the women of Washington 
 regarded as the handsomest and most fascinating man 
 in Washington society, and knowing that he belonged 
 to her only, Kitty would not confess it. She would not 
 believe that it had any thing to do with the tingling of 
 her nerves and the racing of her blood as they began 
 to draw near Washington. He met them at the Relay 
 House, as she knew he would, and she gave him a per- 
 functory kiss because there were many curious eyes 
 looking on to see how she would greet her husband; but 
 Morland felt that it was perfunctory, and the joy of 
 getting Kitty home again, after a lonely week of absence, 
 was tempered by a reminder that never lost its sting — 
 Kitty had married him because she must. 
 
 Kitty's return to Washington was more of an event 
 than even she had anticipated; for in her absence the 
 list of new Cabinet officers had been published, and 
 society was in revolt that the name of Kitty McCabe's 
 husband should be among them. 
 
 It was worse even than Morland had dreaded. His 
 sensitive soul was stung as by a thousand venomous 
 shafts of malignant wasps. To hear Kitty's name 
 bandied about with no way of putting a stop to it, was a 
 living death to him. It did not help matters any that 
 the gossips were letting him alone, afraid, perhaps, of 
 
JOHN MORLAND 331 
 
 attacking openly so powerful an official; they were more 
 surely wounding him, as they well knew, by their veiled 
 and open thrusts at Kitty. 
 
 He was glad that the storm had broken while she was 
 away in New York; he hoped the worst would be over 
 before her return. She should see no papers and hear 
 no buzzing of the hornets' nest if he could help it, until 
 the angry swarm had quieted down. He was successful 
 for a while, for Kitty was plunged into such a whirl — 
 getting her house in order and her gown ready for the 
 rapidly approaching inauguration — that she saw no 
 one, and the papers were sedulously kept from her. 
 
 It was on the great day itself that the first envenomed 
 shaft reached her. She had been present at the inaugural 
 ceremony in a ravishing costume, distributing smiles 
 and gay little nods wherever she could catch a friendly 
 glance, and looking the picture of proud disdain whenever 
 she met a cold or malignant one. At the levee, still more 
 ravishing, unhatted and imcloaked, she stood in the 
 semi-circle of Cabinet ladies beside the President and 
 guarded, like him, by that cordon of friends who had 
 drawn themselves up before him, to protect him from 
 being crushed in the mad rush of the lawless hordes 
 determined to see and do honour to the people's idol. 
 Never had the White House seen such a spectacle — 
 the delicate brocades of chairs and sofas ruined by the 
 muddy boots of hundreds who stood upon them for 
 better vantage ground for seeing; the lace curtains at 
 the windows torn and draggled by the impatient crowd 
 climbing through them, since they would not wait for 
 slower ingress by the doors; and even the expedient of 
 
332 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 carrying great hogsheads of punch outside to be dis- 
 tributed on the lawns f aiHng to do more than divert for 
 a moment the mad crowds who felt that since the people's 
 President was in the White House, the White House 
 was at the riotous will of the people to treat it as they 
 would. It was a disgraceful spectacle, and Kitty hardly 
 knew whether she was more filled with disgust by the 
 lawlessness of it or swelling with triumph at the evidence 
 it gave of her hero's popularity. 
 
 It was the first time she had met the ladies of the Cabinet, 
 and she had been received by them quite as well as she 
 had anticipated — with sufficient cordiality from some 
 and with less pointed coldness than might have been 
 expected from the others. Even Mrs. Calhoun who, since 
 the new President was a widower, was now, as the wife 
 of the Vice-President, the first lady of the land, had 
 bestowed on her a stately bend of the head which Kitty 
 had returned by an exaggerated curtsey that savoured 
 a little of sauciness. 
 
 All this was as well as Kitty could hope for, and much 
 better than Morland had dreaded. It was with an in- 
 voluntary sigh of relief that he turned to his own duty 
 of protecting the President. He glanced back at Kitty 
 frequently, partly to gratify his eyes with a glimpse of 
 her loveliness in the new gown that had burst upon him 
 in all its undimmed splendour, quite as Kitty had in- 
 tended, and partly to assure himself that she was still 
 unhurt. Through a large part of that tiresome ordeal 
 of keeping back the throngs, his glances at Kitty assured 
 him that all was well. But there came a moment when 
 he looked back just in time to see her turn deadly white. 
 He feared she was about to fall, and with a hurried 
 
JOHN MORLAND 333 
 
 word to the man next him to fill in his place, he stepped 
 back to Kitty's side. 
 
 "What is it, Kitty?' You are tired from standing 
 so long; I will find some way of getting you out of this." 
 
 "Oh, no — it is nothing" — Kitty had brought her- 
 self back by a tremendous effort of will — " the air of 
 the room is not very good, I suppose; I will be all right 
 in a minute." 
 
 There was a little conscious flurry between the two 
 women who stood next in line to Kitty. Morland glanced 
 at them sharply. He recognized them as two members 
 of the new Cabinet circle who had been loudest and 
 most strenuous in their opposition to Kitty — or so it 
 had been reported to him. One of them had not wholly 
 escaped the breath of scandal herself, and for that reason, 
 doubtless, was all the more virulent. Morland knew 
 almost as well as if Kitty had told him — they had been 
 talking about her, and she had overheard them — per- 
 haps they had intended her to hear. 
 
 "Kitty!" he said, sternly, "you are not well, and you 
 must get out of this." 
 
 He drew her arm through his, and since they were 
 behind the cordon he found little difficulty in getting 
 her through back passages on to the lawns at the rear. 
 Skirting the fringes of the crowd, he met a carriage that 
 was not his own — but he did not stop for that — put 
 Kitty in, and got in beside her. 
 
 " Now, Kitty, what was it ? " he asked quietly, but with 
 a ring of authority in his voice, as soon as the carriage 
 door closed on them. 
 
 But Kitty was not going to tell him. They were 
 horrible words she had beard, words that she had never 
 
334 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 dreamed could be applied to her, though she knew, and 
 guessed at even more than she knew, that there had been 
 much gossip about her. They were hateful words, and 
 at first they had frightened her; but she was no longer 
 frightened. She was seething with a bitter indignation, 
 and a curious kind of courage had sprung up in her 
 to meet this deadly thrust. It was not at all like the 
 flashing and flame-like emotion of anger and courage 
 that she had heretofore known; it was hard and cold 
 and deadly as steel. She wanted no comforting from 
 Morland for, most of all, she did not want Morland 
 to know that she had been hurt. So she answered him 
 petulantly, which was, perhaps, the most natural line 
 she could have taken, and the one most likely to disarm 
 his suspicions. 
 
 "Oh, nothing was the matter; why do you insist so? 
 The room was close and I was tired." 
 
 He did not insist further, but neither did he change 
 his belief as to the cause for Kitty's sudden pallor. As 
 for Kitty, she recognized that the gauntlet had been 
 thrown down, and she hardened her heart and picked it 
 up. From that time on there was merry war in Wash- 
 ington, and Kitty went gaily into every conflict; and if 
 she did not always come out with shining laurels she 
 always came out with undaunted spirit. Morland, a 
 soldier to the core, shrank sensitively from warfare of 
 this kind, and would have liked to put an end to it by 
 removing the casus belli. He went to Jackson and 
 begged to be permitted to resign. But the old soldier 
 would hear none of it. He had espoused Kitty's cause 
 with all the ardour of his nature. "The old cats," he 
 said, glowing with wrath, "hounded my Rachel to her 
 
JOHN MORLAND 335 
 
 grave — they shall not scratch my little Kitty!" and 
 Morland was forced to yield. 
 
 But the enemy had methods of warfare that would 
 have rendered powerless any other man than the hero 
 of New Orleans. They gave parties to which Kitty 
 was not invited; they refused to call on her; in a thousand 
 and one ways they attested their determination to force 
 her from the Cabinet circle. Jackson met their tactics 
 with an edict: the ladies of the Cabinet must call on 
 Mrs. Morland and invite her to their large parties. The 
 ladies stormed. When had American women — queens 
 and princesses in their own right — ever been subject to 
 orders! 
 
 Kitty's new house in Georgetown adjoined beautiful 
 Monterey, the home of the Calhouns. Kitty, driving 
 out in her fine new carriage drawn by spanking bays 
 in silver-mounted harness, must pass the gates of Mon- 
 terey, and more than once came upon Mrs. Calhoun, 
 also in her carriage. Kitty always bowed graciously, 
 as if with a touch of condescension; Mrs. Calhoun barely 
 nodded, or looked the other way. 
 
 In her heart this attitude of Mrs. Calhoun's hurt 
 Kitty grievously. She admired her greatly — as did 
 every one in Washington. She stood for what was, 
 secretly, Kitty's ideal of gracious womanhood; moving 
 in society with dignity and charm, courted and admired 
 for her social and intellectual graces, but known best 
 and admired most as a devoted wife and mother. Kitty 
 would have liked to make a friend of her, and the iron 
 entered her soul that Mrs. Calhoun should so relentlessly 
 proscribe her when she knew herself so innocent of the 
 
336 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 horrible charges she had overheard at the inauguration 
 reception. To be condemned without a hearing by such 
 a woman as Mrs. Calhoun was an injustice she could illy 
 submit to. 
 
 It was a lovely April day. There had been showers 
 in the morning drenching the fresh green of early spring 
 and making it visibly grow before Kitty's eyes. She 
 was sitting at an open window in her pretty boudoir and 
 looking out on the green lawns of her own place and of 
 Monterey with the light shadows cast by the feathery 
 foliage of April lying on them. Kitty had a book lying 
 idly in her lap — a new novel of Cooper's — and Kitty 
 was an inveterate novel reader, and was charmed by 
 this new writer who was making as romantic tales out 
 of her own country as any that Scott was making of 
 England. But the book had no charms for her at this 
 moment. All the out-doors world, shining under the 
 April sun, was calling her to come, and Kitty had no- 
 where to go. She had seen Mrs. Calhoun drive out of 
 the gates of Monterey, and she knew she was bent on a 
 round of calls. That was what Kitty would have liked 
 to do — array herself in one of her pretty new gowns 
 and be seen in her handsome carriage driving around 
 the streets of Washington leaving her cards at society's 
 most exclusive doors. But Kitty very well knew the 
 doors would be shut, and she had no calls to make. 
 She must sit indoors on this lovely spring afternoon and be 
 the only woman in Washington thus captive. To be sure, 
 she could take her mother and Janet to drive, but she 
 had taken Mrs. McCabe to drive for the last three after- 
 noons, and for very shame she had hinted to her that 
 society engagements would prevent her to-day. Not 
 
JOHN MORLAND 337 
 
 for worlds would she have her mother know how com- 
 plete was her ostracism. She could hear Janet's voice 
 in merry play on the lawn below. Janet loved this new 
 home with its pretty rooms and big garden with great trees, 
 the gay crocuses peeping out among the grass, and 
 daffodils and hyacinths blooming in the borders. But 
 she missed her grandmother sadly, though' not half so 
 sadly as Mrs. McCabe missed her little Janet. Kitty, 
 who missed her mother sadly also, at times, had ar- 
 ranged that she should dine with her every other day, 
 but this was not her day, and Kitty had leisure to feel 
 as blue and miserable and rebeUious as she pleased. 
 
 Enjoying her misery to the utmost, she saw from her 
 window Mr. Calhoun ride up to the door of Monterey. 
 Since he was returning home it must be later than she 
 had supposed, and Morland would soon be home also. 
 Kitty was too proud to be found in "the dumps;" she 
 picked up her book and began to read diligently. Pres- 
 ently she heard Morland's voice in a romp with Janet, 
 and a moment later his long stride on the stairs, three 
 steps at a time. He knocked at her door — he had 
 never yet entered her door without knocking. 
 
 "What!" he exclaimed, as he entered in response to 
 her "Come in!" "Shut up in the house this beautiful 
 day ? I had no idea I would find you at home till Janet 
 told me you were upstairs." 
 
 Kitty answered with a smile that she had been buried 
 in her story and had hardly noticed the weather. But 
 John, whose heart was aching for Kitty these days, and 
 who was sometimes afraid that it would have been 
 better for her not to have married him, was sure 
 that she had been moping. He would take her out 
 
338 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 into the lovely spring air and let her get a little of 
 nature's healing. 
 
 "The 'Deerslayer' is it?" he answered her, picking 
 up the book in her lap. "Yes, I thought so. Well, 
 I 'm very grateful to Mr. Cooper for keeping you at 
 home this beautiful day, for now we can have a horse- 
 back ride. It 's been many a week, between business 
 and society, since we have found time for a ride together." 
 And, without waiting for Kitty to assent or refuse, he 
 rang the bell and ordered Brown Bess and Selim brought 
 round at once. 
 
 "What right have you to do that without waiting to 
 know whether I want to go ? " asked Kitty, coldly. She 
 was in a perverse mood; for a horseback ride was the 
 very thing she had been longing for until the moment 
 John proposed it, when she found herself mentally 
 making a thousand objections. 
 
 "Right?" said John good humouredly, "it's not so 
 serious as a question of rights, is it ? But don't you want 
 to go, Kitty?" 
 
 "No," said Kitty shortly. 
 
 "Why not?" John persisted. 
 
 "I 'm tired, and I don't feel like it — is n't that reason 
 enough ? " 
 
 John was not going to give it up, for the more he saw 
 of Kitty's perverse mood the more sure was he that she 
 needed to get out in the open and away from herself 
 and her broodings. John often acknowledged to himself 
 that his path with Kitty in these last weeks had been no 
 path of roses. But, then, he had not expected it to be 
 when he married her. He knew Kitty did not love him, 
 and no doubt she was not finding her own path rose- 
 
JOHN MORLAND 339 
 
 strewn. He must not forget that he had promised 
 himself that no thought of self should enter into this 
 marriage — Kitty's welfare and Kitty's honour and 
 Kitty's happiness must be his only aims. So he kept 
 on good-naturedly until, with a laughing array of argu- 
 ments, commands, and entreaties, he at last prevailed 
 upon her. But once on Brown Bess, cantering gently 
 down the circular drive in front of the house, flinging 
 backward kisses to Janet who was calling "Good-bye, 
 mamma Kitty," "Good-bye, papa Morland," to them, 
 Kitty's spirits began to rise a little. And then they passed 
 the gates of Monterey just as Mrs. Calhoun's carriage 
 drove up furiously, Mrs. Calhoun sitting erect in it with 
 none of her usual air of elegant languor, but unmis- 
 takably excited — so excited, in fact, that she probably 
 did not see the two riders, certainly she did not look 
 at them, and they turned and looked questioningly at 
 one another. 
 
 "Something must have happened," said Kitty, "to 
 bring her back in a little more than an hour, and in 
 such a state of excitement. Do you suppose Mr. Cal- 
 houn has been suddenly taken ill? He came home just 
 a few minutes before you." 
 
 But John did not know, and they rode away toward 
 the wooded hills behind Georgetown, Kitty's spirits 
 growing lighter with every mile of the way in the soft 
 spring sunshine, and John bringing all his powers to bear 
 to entertain her, amuse and divert her; and neither 
 of them dreaming that, while they rode, behind them, 
 in the Monterey mansion they had just seen Mrs. Cal- 
 houn enter in such excitement, Kitty was being avenged. 
 
 Mr. Calhoun had come home a little earlier than 
 
340 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 usual. To a man of his abilities, loving the heat of 
 forensic strife as the war-horse loves the smoke of battle, 
 it was supremely irksome to preside day after day over 
 the Senate when he would have loved to be down in the 
 thick of the fight. His only compensation was that he 
 found time for reading and study that he had not found 
 for years — not since he had entered Congress and almost 
 at once had become the great leader of the NuUifiers. 
 Now that Congress was not in session he spent all the 
 long hours of the morning and early afternoon in foraging 
 in the Congressional Library, bringing home with him 
 such books as he needed to read and digest at leisure. 
 
 He was glad to be at home and at his library desk a 
 little earlier than usual to-day. The windows were open, 
 but he hardly noticed the fragrant air that filled the room 
 and gently stirred the lace at the windows. He had been 
 seated a half-hour and was so buried in his volume, 
 from which he was making copious notes, that he did 
 not hear carriage-wheels on the gravel of the drive nor 
 did he lift his head as he said "Come in," in response 
 to a hurried knock. Even when a voice, trembling with 
 indignation, broke upon his ear, he with difficulty roused 
 himself and slowly lifted his eyes to his wife standing 
 beade his chair, her eyes flashing in a way he never 
 remembered to have seen in his gentle wife. 
 
 "What do you intend to do about this, Mr. Calhoun? 
 Are the ladies of the Cabinet to be insulted with im- 
 punity by that boor in the White House ? " 
 
 "What is it now, my dear?" he asked, wonderingly. 
 
 "Haven't you heard that we are ordered — ordered, 
 to call on Mrs. Morland? Yes, and invite her to our 
 large parties." 
 
JOHN MORLAND 341 
 
 'Are you quite sure?" he asked, slowly. He had 
 been inclined at first to smile at his wife's excitement, 
 and had thought he could easily laugh her out of it. 
 But his own blood, the hot blood of South Carolina, 
 stirred at that word "ordered." 
 
 "Quite sure. Oh, there can be no mistake. I was 
 calling on two of the Cabinet ladies this afternoon and 
 they both told the same story: It had been 'intimated' 
 to their husbands that it would be well for them to see 
 that their wives called on Mrs. Morland, 'for the sake 
 of maintaining harmony in the Cabinet.' " 
 
 "I have not received any such orders," grimly, "and 
 I suppose that as wife of the Vice-President it would 
 be more incumbent upon you than upon the others to 
 call upon her." 
 
 "Then I need not call?" 
 
 Calhoun hestitated. 
 
 "Do you believe those tales of her to be true ?" he asked 
 slowly. 
 
 "Oh, there can be no doubt of them, I fear. I heard 
 more this afternoon, and from people who seemed to 
 know. They made assurance doubly sure." 
 
 "But I thought you always liked her husband?" 
 
 "John Morland? I did like him. But like many 
 another charming man who intends to do right he is 
 weak where a beautiful and designing woman is con- 
 cerned. Kitty McCabe has no heart and no conscience. 
 She was perfectly willing to tread him down into the 
 mire if by so doing she could raise herself to the upper 
 ranks of society." 
 
 Calhoun sat long, buried in thought, before he spoke 
 again. His gaze, through the open window, rested on 
 
342 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 the blue line of the Virginia hills across the Potomac, 
 but he did not see them. Instead, he saw the little 
 Kitty as he had known her years ago at McCabe's, 
 bright-eyed and pert, or so he had considered her. He 
 saw her, dishevelled but beautiful, rushing into the 
 crowded dining-room to fling herself on General Jack- 
 son's neck; and he saw her again, in a still more objec- 
 tionable light, dressed like a fashionable belle and 
 dancing like a ballet-girl before the same room full of 
 men; and he said to himself: "Did I ever hope for 
 anything better for her, knowing her rearing and her 
 natural disposition? I have no doubt the tales are all 
 true — they must be — and the women of Washington 
 are right to resent her impudent forcing of herself upon 
 them." 
 
 Then, in a flash, the veil dropped from the future. 
 Should he antagonize Jackson in this — the recognition 
 of Mrs. Morland — which Jackson had seemed to make 
 the most insistent desire of his heart, he would be de- 
 stroying his own dearest hopes for the future. It had 
 been virtually promised him that if he would consent to 
 take the second place on the Jackson ticket this year, 
 he should have the first on the same ticket, supported 
 loyally by Jackson's friends, when Jackson should be 
 ready to step down. He knew the implacable nature of 
 the old soldier; should he support his wife in this war 
 against Mrs. Morland, Heaven and earth would be 
 moved against him to prevent his ever receiving that 
 nomination he so dearly coveted and had coveted for 
 years; coveted, not alone for the glory of it to himself, but 
 for the power it would give him to disseminate and 
 strengthen those views dearer to him than any self- 
 
JOHN MORLAND 343 
 
 glorification — Nullification and State Sovereignty. Here 
 on one side stood the wife of his youth in her unsullied 
 womanhood demanding protection from what she re- 
 garded as unchaste and unclean — on the other side 
 stood his darling ambition. He must trample the sen- 
 sibilities of the one in the dust or put his knife to the 
 throat of the other. 
 
 Mrs. Calhoun stood watching her husband anxiously. 
 She could see that he was disturbed, but she could not 
 know the tremendous struggle going on under that 
 pale, scholarly exterior; nor could she foresee the far- 
 reaching results of his decision. She had not her 
 husband's seer-like vision; she could not lift the veil and 
 see Calhoun, disappointed in his hopes, turning with 
 redoubled zeal to the propagation of his theories through- 
 out his beloved South-land; she could not foresee, as 
 the result of such propaganda, the land plunged into 
 the throes of civil war, drenched in the blood of its sons, 
 and her own loved South Carolina the first to lift the 
 hostile standard and the last to recover from the bitter 
 atonement of fire and sword and all the horrors of misrule 
 and cruel greed of gold. If she could have seen that awful 
 vision, her gentle spirit would have shuddered and drawn 
 back from applying the match to so terrible a confla- 
 gration. 
 
 But she had no prescience of it, and it is probable 
 Calhoun did not half foresee its horrors. He turned 
 his eyes away from the Virginia hills at last, and let them 
 rest on his wife. She wondered why they looked so 
 sad, and she did not understand the melancholy ring 
 in his voice as he spoke to her quietly. 
 
 "My dear, you are quite right. Mr. Jackson has no 
 
344 THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 
 
 control over your private actions, and you need not 
 offend your own sense of right and of proper dignity. 
 You need not call on Mistress Morland." 
 
 And so Kitty's little feet, dancing gaily and carelessly 
 down the great highway of life, sometimes tossing dust 
 into the eyes of the wise, and sometimes the hearts of 
 men from out of her wilful way, had throvsm up, at last, 
 a mountain, dark and formidable and forbidding, and 
 stretching from the East to the West, over which the 
 coming generation would have to make perilous crossing, 
 sword in hand, before they could once more find their 
 happy, unriven country basking in the sunshine of peace 
 and plenty and joy. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 BARON KRUDENER OFFENDS MRS. HUTGENS 
 
 T I iHIS was the last of Kitty's days of depression. 
 -■■ Hereafter she might be excited or angry or resent- 
 ful or gleeful; she was not, for many months, at least, 
 to sit down in the doleful dumps with folded hands. 
 
 At the very moment she and John were dismounting 
 from their ride, and Kitty was hurrying into the house 
 to change her dress for dinner, there was arriving in 
 Washington, four miles away, the man who, with an un- 
 rivalled genius for men and matters, was to take up 
 the disordered threads of Kitty's affairs and weave 
 them quietly into the well-ordered web of his own. Not 
 that Kitty's affairs would seem either quiet or well- 
 ordered, but there would be a master-hand guiding them, 
 and action would take the place of depression, and an 
 offensive warfare carried into the very camp of the 
 enemy be substituted for a miserable waiting at home 
 on the defensive. All of which suited perfectly Kitty's 
 vigorous temperament — the action-loving temperament 
 of a healthy young animal. 
 
 Van Buren had been for seventy days governor of 
 New York. He had resigned his seat in the Senate at 
 Clinton's death to take his great rival's place in Albany 
 as head of the proud commonwealth, only to be sum- 
 moned thence to Jackson's Cabinet. He could not 
 immediately resign his oflSce, and so it was nearly a 
 
346 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 month after the inauguration before his arrival in Wash- 
 ington to assume the duties of Secretary of State. 
 
 Very likely he had been thoroughly informed of the 
 status of Kitty's affairs and of the part Jackson was taking 
 in them before his arrival; if not, he took it all in with 
 amazing keenness and swiftness. Almost his first oflS- 
 cial act was his knock at Kitty's door and his call on 
 the wife of the Secretary of War. That call, alone, 
 endeared him at once to Jackson, and was the first step 
 on his road to the Presidency lying just eight years ahead 
 of him; for Jackson, regarding himself as the most 
 ardent of republicans, was, in fact, an absolute autocrat, 
 and had determined on appointing his own successor. 
 
 But Van Buren did not stop at the call. He had no 
 wife to consult or offend, and neither had the British 
 Ambassador nor the Russian Ambassador. They three 
 should enter into an offensive alliance in Kitty's behalf. 
 The British Ambassador had already given evidence 
 of his appreciation of the charms of the young Mrs. 
 Sutherland; the Russian Ambassador was not slow to 
 perceive those of the still youthful Mrs. Morland. 
 
 It was decided that the British Ambassador should 
 give a ball at the Embassy; and the doors of the British 
 Embassy were never opened that all Washington, who 
 could possibly command tickets, did not flock thither. 
 Kitty was lovely in her prettiest evening frock, and the 
 three men who stood highest socially in Washington 
 vied with each other in showering honours upon her; to 
 the indignation of mothers with marriageable daughters, 
 since the three were also the most eligible partis in Wash- 
 ington. The amiable Secretary of State, who did not 
 dance, promenaded with her, sat with her, and conducted 
 
JOHN MORLAND 347 
 
 her to the supper-table. The two others — the aristo- 
 cratic Briton and the jovial Baron Krudener — both 
 "stood up" with her in the cotillion — but in vain. 
 Each cotillion as it was formed melted away when Kitty 
 came to take her place at the he^d of it — the outraged 
 women of Washington indignantly turning their backs 
 on her. 
 
 The first time this happened Kitty was ready to sink 
 with shame; but the Secretary, the Baron and the Am- 
 bassador all rallied to her support and, persuading her 
 to look on it in the light of a huge joke, she went through 
 the rest of the evening in a spirit of daring fun, seizing 
 the opportunity to dissolve cotillion after cotillion by 
 simply appearing in it. And if no one would let her 
 dance in a cotillion set, no one could prevent her waltzing, 
 and the three men saw that she was plentifully supplied 
 with partners to whirl her up and down the long floor, 
 with hundreds of eyes, willing or unwilling, watching 
 the divine Kitty. 
 
 She entered into the spirit of it and enjoyed it, but 
 Morland could not. He would have liked to withdraw 
 at the dissolving of the first cotillion, but Kitty was fn 
 the "hands of her friends," and he would not interfere. 
 It had been part of his mental contract with himself 
 when he married Kitty that she should be absolutely 
 free to go her own way. He would give her the pro- 
 tection of his name, but he would impose upon her 
 neither the authority of a husband nor any other of the 
 matrimonial chains, and the only part he assigned himself 
 in their programme at this ball was to show her such 
 honour and such attention as he could find opportunity 
 for between the assiduous attentions of the others. 
 
348 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 On the whole, the ball had hardly been the success for 
 Kitty that her friends had hoped, and the three con- 
 spirators, realizing this, immediately planned another 
 that should more pointedly distinguish her. Baron 
 Krudener should give it this time at the Russian Em- 
 bassy, and Kitty, now thoroughly aroused, determined 
 that in order to look the part and play it with the spirit 
 she intended, she must have a new gown. John ven- 
 tured on only one remonstrance. 
 
 "Is it quite worth while, Kitty," he asked gently, "to 
 subject yourself to snubs and insults from these Wash- 
 ington women?" 
 
 "Snubs!" retorted Kitty, wrathfully, "I think, sir, it 
 is I who do the snubbing! Yes, it is quite worth while 
 to have the Secretary of State and the ambassadors of 
 Russia and Great Britain dancing attendance on me 
 before their envious eyes." 
 
 John said no more, and when the evening of the ball 
 arrived he dutifully went to his room to make, with 
 Jeff's assistance, his own grand toilet. If he did not 
 know himself the handsomest man in Washington, he 
 was naturally .careful in matters of dress, and a little 
 more so now, perhaps, than ever, since his dressing was 
 in Kitty's honour. He was all ready but his coat, and he 
 had dismissed Jeff, when there was a knock at his door 
 and Kitty's voice: 
 
 "Are you dressed? May I come in?" 
 
 Now, in all the months of their married life, Kitty had 
 never once come to his room when he had been in it. 
 
 "Wait one moment, Kitty," he answered, hurried into 
 his coat, and ran to open the door for her blushing like 
 a boy. 
 
JOHN MORLAND 349 
 
 " I wanted you to see whether I look all right before I 
 put on my cloak," said Kitty, coming in and standing 
 demurely before him to be admired, her own colour a little 
 heightened by her audacity. 
 
 John looked her over gravely. He had never seen 
 even Kitty such a vision of loveliness. She was all 
 shimmering silver and shining white. A high girdle of 
 silver set with brilliants confined the soft folds of the 
 gleaming satin where the infinitesimal waist joined the 
 skirt falling in straight, soft folds to the silver-embroidered 
 hem. Silver buckles studded with brilliants flashed 
 from the toes of her tiny white slippers, and silver and 
 diamond bands clasped her short puffed sleeves. Her 
 chestnut curls were caught up by a diamond crescent 
 from which floated a long and waving ostrich plume 
 of white, which in turn held in place a short veil of misty 
 white, silver spangled. Around her white throat flashed 
 a circlet of diamond dew-drops, and from the tip of her 
 glittering crescent to the tip of her tiny slipper she was 
 all a dazzling sparkle and glimmer and glow. 
 
 John looked at her so long that Kitty grew uneasy 
 under his gaze. 
 
 "Am I not all right? Is anything the matter?" she 
 said at last. "You know this is to be the crucial contest, 
 and I want no flaw in my armour." 
 
 She smiled a little propitiatory smile as she said it; 
 she could not quite understand John. 
 
 "It's flawless, Kitty," he said, still gravely, "there 
 will not be a man there that will not surrender on sight." 
 
 In his heart he was saying: She looks such an angel, 
 she must be one." 
 
 "How about the women?" asked Kitty, archly. 
 
350 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 "Oh, they will be roused, of course, to bitterer oppo- 
 sition; but that 's what you want, I suppose. It would n't 
 be human nature for your rivals to see you such a vision 
 and not hate you with a deadlier hatred, would it?" 
 
 "Thank you. Yes, of course, that 's what I like. 
 And you are looking very well yourself, sir. People will 
 be saying: 'There go the handsomest couple in the room', " 
 and she made him a curtsey and turned to go. 
 
 "Wait a moment, Kitty," said John, half hesitating, 
 half determined. "Will you let me kiss you before you 
 go? For the sake of old times, when I used to, you 
 know. Would you mind?" 
 
 "Of course not," said Kitty indifferently as she turned 
 back, and tossing her head a little to emphasize the 
 indifference; but her curling lashes were lying on her 
 cheek and her cheek was a deeper tint of rose as she 
 turned it to him. 
 
 He had half a mind to take her in his arms, for why 
 had she come to his room looking so tantalizingly beau- 
 tiful if she had not been willing to dare him to do it. 
 The pulses were leaping madly in his veins, but one 
 thought restrained him. " Kitty does not love me ; she 
 married me because she must," he said to himself, and 
 so saying, stilled all the mad currents and kissed her 
 lightly on her proffered cheek. 
 
 "Thank you, Kitty," he said, teasingly, "but next 
 time I 'm going to word it differently. I 'm going to 
 say: 'Will you kiss me, Kitty?'" 
 
 "And get a 'no' for your pains," answered Kitty 
 saucily, and ran back to her room for her cloak. 
 
 The ball was more of a success than the first in one 
 particular; not so many cotillions dissolved before Kitty's 
 
JOHN MORLAND 351 
 
 advancing steps. For one thing, she did not try to dance 
 so often, and the cotillions she did dance were arranged 
 beforehand by her three friends — they saw to it that 
 they were of sterner stuff or more friendly than to melt 
 at her approach. 
 
 But it had been decided that the supreme effort should 
 be made at supper. As was customary in the days 
 of our grandmothers, only the ladies were seated at 
 table at a ball, the men standing behind their chairs 
 seeing that they were waited on, and themselves some- 
 times eating and drinking as they stood; or, if they were 
 much given to the pleasures of the table, waiting until 
 the ladies had left the supper-room, when they might 
 gratify appetite to the full. The place at table and the 
 man assigned as escort, then a^ now, indicated the degree 
 of honour to be conferred. Since the host was not 
 seated, there was no sitting at his right, but Baron Kru- 
 dener had assigned to Kitty and to the wife of the Dutch 
 Ambassador, the lady of most distinction present, the 
 places of honour, side by side, at the head of the long 
 table. 
 
 These arrangements had been made without con- 
 sulting Morland; as usual he was leaving Kitty to the 
 three arch-consiprators. It would be difficult to say 
 why they did not consult him — certainly he was a 
 deeply interested party. Perhaps it was from a feeling 
 that he would shrink from so much intrigue where his 
 wife was concerned ; that if he had his way he and Kitty 
 would make themselves as unobtrusive as possible, so 
 hoping to escape the shafts of calumny. But he could 
 not but be pleased to see the host himself conducting 
 Kitty to the head of the table — after all, no doubt the 
 
352 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 three men were right about it. If society saw Kitty con- 
 stantly honoured in high places and by the highest in 
 the land, society must at last accord her a recognition, if 
 only a grudging one. 
 
 It was also a pleasant thing to have his host come to 
 him and say: 
 
 "Senator Morland, will you take Mrs. Huygens out 
 to supper? She belongs of right to the Secretary of 
 State, since she is the only wife of a foreign minister 
 present, but Mr. Van Buren has, waived his claims in 
 favour of a 'younger and a handsomer man,' as he puts 
 it, and no doubt the lady herself will appreciate the 
 exchange." 
 
 Morland regarded the rather bald compliment on his 
 personal appearance as nothing more than ordinary 
 pleasantry and the somewhat exaggerated affability of 
 a foreigner; he expressed his pleasure and his sense of 
 the honour conferred and hastened to obey. 
 
 But the lady herself did not appreciate the exchange. 
 She was a stickler for form, and when she saw she was 
 not to be taken out by the Secretary of State, and that 
 his substitute was the husband of the much-talked-of 
 Kitty, she drew herself up with a half-gesture of refusal. 
 She relented quickly out of consideration for Morland's 
 embarrassment should she decline his offer of escort, 
 but she was not quick enough to prevent Morland from 
 seeing and understanding her first involuntary movement. 
 He felt himself grow hot to the roots of his hair, and he 
 unconsciously stiffened himself as he offered his arm, 
 anathematizing, mentally, this whole web of intrigue of 
 which he had never approved and into which he now 
 saw himself to be most innocently drawn. 
 
JOHN MORLAND 353 
 
 They were a very stately couple, and the eyes of the 
 throng pressing after them to the supper-room watched 
 them curiously, quite sure that it was as distasteful to 
 Secretary Morland to be performing this office as it was 
 to the wife of the Dutch minister to be accepting it. 
 Morland had been informed that he was to place her 
 at Kitty's side — he wished now, with all his heart, that 
 he might place her anywhere else. But he had no right 
 to make any change in his host's arrangements without 
 consulting him, and that was now an impossibility. He 
 set his jaw grimly and conducted her to a chair at the 
 right of Kitty, who was already seated. 
 
 This was too much! It was discourtesy enough that 
 she should been have relegated to the Secretary of War 
 when the highest was due her, but to share the honour- 
 seat at table with this woman of whom all society was 
 talking was an insult direct. Mrs. Huygens was a 
 beautiful woman, tall and stately; she drew herself up 
 to her full height, dropped Morland's arm, and in falter- 
 ing English, but in a high clear voice that penetrated to 
 every one in the room, she said to him: 
 
 "I make my apologies to you, Mr. Morland," and, 
 turning to Baron Krudener who was standing behind 
 Kitty's chair, "I beg you will send my husband to me 
 at once. Baron Krudener. I make you my adieux." 
 
 For one awful moment there was silence that could 
 be felt; then Mrs. Huygens, espying her husband close 
 at hand, hastened toward him, and taking his arm, swept 
 from the room, the Baron accompanying her, profuse in 
 regrets that she must leave before supper, but making 
 no apologies. He returned to his place near Kitty and 
 the supper went forward with feverish gaiety, every one 
 
354 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 struggling to ignore the incident and to cover it by either 
 real or assumed hilarity, and Kitty herself bubbling 
 over with irrepressible spirits. Mrs. Huygens, ap- 
 parently, had been but a torch to set her mirth, her wit, 
 and her audacity ablaze. 
 
 Morland was outwardly calm, but within he was 
 experiencing such rage mingled with distress as , made 
 it difficult for him to think consecutively or act logically. 
 He was keeping his plare near Kitty with something 
 of the air of a noble mastiff bent on protecting his mistress 
 from danger that he could feel was in the air, but could 
 not see. Van Buren and the Baron felt his discomfiture 
 keenly and had both come to his support, engaging him 
 in the light chaff of conversation that passes current in 
 such a place, and trying to make him forget the disagree- 
 able contretemps for which their consciences assured 
 them they were responsible. Morland appreciated their 
 efforts, and responded to them to the best of his ability, 
 but he was angry with them both. The only excuse he 
 could make for them was that they had meant well; they 
 had really Kitty's welfare at heart and were determined 
 upon her recognition by society. But their efforts were 
 misdirected; he had always thought so, he was sure of 
 it now. Hereafter he would take matters into his own 
 hands; he would not leave his wife at the mercy of ill- 
 advised friends. 
 
 And then he brought his seething thoughts up with a 
 sudden check. His wife! What authority had he over 
 Kitty? He had never assumed any, and she would, no 
 doubt, resent it if he should do so at this late day. He 
 groaned inwardly and was conscious of a sensation of 
 anger he had never believed it possible to feel toward 
 
JOHN MORLAND 355 
 
 Kitty, at this moment more radiantly beautiful than he 
 had ever seen her and apparently in the highest spirits, 
 keeping a crowd of men behind her chair in a tempest 
 of mirth over her sallies of wit. 
 
 He had stood near her long enough to show his loyalty, 
 he would not stand there longer to be irritated by her 
 careless glee. Of what stuff was she made? Had she 
 absolutely no sensibilities that she should not seem to 
 feel such an indignity? And if she did not care for 
 herself ought she not to show some consideration for him 
 — some wifely concern for the humiliation to which he 
 had been subjected? But he brought himself up short 
 again- He was not demanding or expecting "wifely 
 concern" from Kitty, and it was an Idle pretense that 
 he was suffering for himself; his only suffering was the 
 terrible smart he felt that she should be scorned. He 
 walked off down the table and, in devoting himself to 
 two or three women who had always been his staunch 
 friends, tried to forget Kitty. 
 
 By the time they were in the carriage on their way 
 home the turmoil of Morland's thoughts had subsided 
 suflBciently to allow him to come to certain conclusions. 
 He had determined that something was due his own 
 dignity. There was no use in talking to Kitty about it, 
 but he would see the President and Van Buren and 
 tell them that this could not go on. 
 
 He was silent, not from any desire to show his disap- 
 proval of Kitty, but because it seemed to him impossible 
 to continue longer the strain he had been under through 
 the evening of keeping up a surface conversation, and he 
 would not talk to Kitty of the one thing that was absorbing 
 all his thoughts. He did not notice for some time that 
 
356 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 Kitty was silent, too. When he did at last rouse himself 
 sufficiently from his brooding to take cognizance of it, 
 he wondered idly if Kitty's silence was in resentment 
 of his own. It certainly was a very unusual condition 
 with her on the homeward ride from a ball — she was 
 always full of a merry review of the evening that here- 
 tofore he had found exceedingly entertaining; admiring 
 the way in which, by a word or a sentence, she mimicked 
 some pompous man or fine lady, and wondering at the 
 keenness of her insight which pierced the cleverest 
 shams and detected sterling worth in the most 
 unobtrusive. Well, if Kitty was resenting his silence 
 he would make an effort to talk to her. He began 
 heavily: 
 
 "It was a fine party, Kitty; did you enjoy it?" 
 
 No answer. 
 
 "The Baron is a very gentlemanly fellow and he 
 showed you great distinction." 
 
 No answer but his sentence required none. He 
 would try again. 
 
 "I think I rather like Mr. Vaughan the better of the 
 two, however. I suppose because he 's an Anglo-Saxon. 
 But they are both fine fellows — which do you like 
 best, Kitty?" 
 
 No answer; and by this time he was beginning to be 
 a little nettled. 
 
 "Kitty! Are you asleep?" he demanded sharply, 
 and was instantly struck to the heart. He had caught 
 a little stifled sound that could mean but one thing: 
 Kitty was weeping, and was trying to conceal it from 
 him. Why should Kitty be weeping? Had she, too, 
 suffered from the slight put upon her when he had been 
 
JOHN MORLAND 357 
 
 thinking her so impervious to such dagger-thrusts and 
 been angry with her for being so ? 
 
 "Kitty," he said, gently, "what is it?" 
 
 But at the gentleness of his tone one uncontrollable 
 sob burst from Kitty. 
 
 "You must not mind Mrs. Hugyens," he went on, 
 trying to comfort her as he would a child. "Of course, 
 people have lied to her, but what do you care so long as 
 you have such friends as the President and the Secre- 
 tary of State and the two ambassadors? Half the 
 women in Washington would change places with you 
 gladly." 
 
 "Oh, John, don't!" Kitty sobbed. 
 
 John's heart gave a great throb and stood still for a 
 moment. Could he believe his ears! He knew Kitty 
 must know his name was John, but she had never called 
 him anything but "Mr. Morland" since their marriage; 
 and before it had always been "Major" or "Senator." 
 She must think of him as "John," or his name would 
 not have slipped out so easily in this moment of distress. 
 Kitty herself seemed to be unconscious that she had 
 used it, and there was an appreciable moment before he 
 could control himself suflBciently to say quietly: 
 
 "Don't what, Kitty?" 
 
 "Don't think that I am caring for myself! It 's you, 
 you! Oh, I could n't bear to see that woman treat you 
 so! I never realized until I saw her how I was exposing 
 you to insult and scorn! Oh, it's all true that I told 
 you before we were married: that I would bring you 
 only disgrace and dishonour! Oh, why, why did you 
 marry me!" 
 
 Kitty had begun to speak, struggling bravely to stifle 
 
358 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 her sobs, but she was in a perfect tempest of tears and 
 sobs and moanings by the time she had finished. It 
 was dark in the carriage and John could not see her, 
 but he knew she had shrunk as far away from him as 
 possible into her own comer. Her sobs had redoubled 
 as soon as she had ceased speaking, though he could tell, 
 even in the dark, that she was making strenuous efforts 
 to subdue them. He turned to her resolutely, took her 
 in his arms, and drew her head down on his shoulder. 
 He was a little surprised that there was no resistance on 
 Kitty's part. He did not speak for a minute, and after 
 a little the sobbing began to be less convulsive. 
 
 " Cry all you like, dear," he said, " it will do you good. 
 And don't think I care for Mrs. Huygens's treatment 
 of me — she cannot hurt me." 
 
 "Oh, but I do care — I knew I ought not to marry 
 you! A year ago there was not a creature in Washington 
 would have dared to treat you as Mrs. Huygens treated 
 you to-night — it is all my fault — but I 'm not going 
 into society any more — I 'm not going to subject you to 
 such ignominy — I 'm going to stay at home and 
 read, and sew, and take care of Janet." 
 
 Kitty's speech had been very fragmentary; convulsive 
 little sobs punctuating it. 
 
 John laughed, thinking if wise not to take her too 
 seriously. 
 
 "And what am I to do, Mrs. Penelope? Will you 
 teach me to sew ? Or will you let me read to you while 
 you sew?" 
 
 " You win go into society without me — and people 
 will say — 'He 's ashamed of his wife' — and it will 
 serve me right," said Kitty, grimly. 
 
JOHN MORLAND 359 
 
 John thought this speech deserved no better answer 
 than a little laugh, and — 
 
 "What a dear little goose you are, Kitty!" and Kitty 
 lay quiet for a moment, the convulsive sobbing stilled 
 into an occasional little sigh. Suddenly she lifted her 
 head. 
 
 "Oh! I'm afraid I've ruined your best coat!" she 
 exclaimed in dismay. "Why did you let me cry on it, 
 John ? I '11 take it to Dinah to-morrow and have her 
 sponge it and press it. I ho'pe it isn't ruined." 
 
 "Don't you dare take my coat to Dinah!" said John, 
 so sternly Kitty quite cowered at the sound. "Let my 
 coat alone, and if it needs anything Jeff will take it to 
 my tailor." 
 
 Kitty wondered. She had never supposed before 
 that John cared so much about clothes; she did not 
 altogether like it in a man. But John did not realize 
 he had been so stern. He had spoken hurriedly because 
 he had been saying to himself: 
 
 "This coat shall be sacred to me now that her little 
 head has rested on it. And if her tears have hurt it I 
 will lay it away and keep it just as it is. And if never 
 again I shall feel her dear head on my shoulder, I will 
 take it out and look at it sometimes, and live over again 
 the most exquisite moments of my life!" 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE PRESIDENT GIVES KITTY A PAHTT 
 
 KITTY was honest, there is no doubt about it, in 
 her resolution to withdraw from society, but 
 then it could not be called going into society to drive 
 down on a lovely October evening, by the light of the 
 hunter's moon to call on her old friend in the White House. 
 
 Kitty very well knew that she was a great pet with 
 the President, and it was her habit, after every ball or 
 society function of any kind, to drop in on him and give 
 him a full account of it in her own inimitable way. Jack- 
 son enjoyed these recountals exceedingly, and since he 
 was debarred both by his position and his health from 
 taking part in balls and dinners this getting them at 
 second hand from Kitty was one of the simple pleasures 
 of his life. 
 
 It was October, because, though Van Buren had 
 arrived in the spring and set his wires to working that 
 were to make Kitty the centre of observation in Wash- 
 ington society, it was not until society had returned from 
 the springs and the mountains, from seashore and 
 country-seats, that the two ambassadors' balls had 
 been sprung upon it. Kitty's summer had been spent 
 principally in Washington, since the Secretary of War 
 could not leave his office there for any great length of 
 time, but there had been one flying trip to Morland's 
 Tennessee plantation and The Hermitage, and there 
 
 sm 
 
THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 361 
 
 had been several weeks spent with Janet on the Suther- 
 lands' Virginia plantation. 
 
 Society, of course, could not be in its fullest swing 
 until Congress should meet in December; but there were 
 the foreign legations, and the members of the Executive 
 and the Judiciary; to say nothing of the aristocratic 
 old families who did not belong to Washington's floating 
 population, and who regarded themselves as society 
 far excellence — quite enough to warrant giving balls 
 and creating sensations, and getting everything well 
 under way, and Kitty fully recognized by society before 
 the meeting of Congress. 
 
 The President's family were gathered on that October 
 evening in the big family living-room at the White 
 House. Around the fireplace, with its blazing logs, 
 sat Mrs. Donelson and Mrs. Andrew Jackson, Jr., 
 and four or five children; the ladies with their work- 
 baskets and the children playing happily together. At 
 one end of the long room sat the President in a loose 
 robe of flowered cashmere smoking a long-stemmed 
 pipe, and at his elbow was Van Buren — the two ear- 
 nestly discussing a foreign dispatch. Occasionally the 
 children at their play grew too noisy for comfort, when 
 the President would glance toward them with the lovely 
 smile that always transfigured his face when he looked 
 at children and wave his pipe absently in their direction. 
 Then Mrs. Donelson would hush them quietly, and 
 the conference between the President and the Secretary 
 would go on for a time undisturbed. 
 
 But there seemed to arise, finally, a little difference of 
 opinion between the two. Jackson insisted on a course 
 which Van Buren feared would give rise to much clamour. 
 
362 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 "I care nothing about clamour, sir, mark me! I do 
 precisely what I think just and right," said Jackson 
 with some heat. 
 
 Van Buren had no chance to reply to this character- 
 istic speech, for at that moment the door was flung 
 open and Augustus, the mulatto factotum at the White 
 House, announced with a flourish, "The Secretary 
 of War and Mrs. Morland." 
 
 Kitty and Morland were privileged at the White 
 House to be ushered at any time to the family living- 
 room, and Kitty ran gaily forward, both hands out- 
 stretched, and greeted the President in the pretty, defer- 
 ential way she always used to the old hero. Jackson 
 rose to his feet and in his flowered dressing-gown, his 
 long-stemmed pipe in his left hand, he received her with 
 that air of high-bred courtesy that was the wonder of 
 all who saw him, as if he were the polished courtier of 
 European courts instead of a hardy pioneer and bold 
 soldier of the West. Then Kitty must make her man- 
 ners to the ladies seated around the fire; but she did not 
 tarry long with them. She knew she was no more of a 
 favourite with Mrs. Donelson than with some of the 
 other Washington ladies, and she was full of last night's 
 ball and in a hurry to begin with her account of it to 
 the President. 
 
 "What a lovely combination!" said Kitty, leaving her 
 husband to entertain the ladies and turning back to the 
 end of the room where Jackson and Van Buren were 
 still standing, out of courtesy to her. "Achilles and 
 Ulysses! And I suppose you know you are not Achilles, 
 Mr. Van Buren." 
 
 " I know there is only one man in America would dare 
 
JOHN MORLAND 363 
 
 to wear that name," said Van Buren smiling at Kitty, 
 "but please, don't dub me Ulysses. Your titles are 
 likely to stick, and I particularly dislike being con- 
 sidered wily." 
 
 "Not wily, but wise. But if you don't like being 
 called Ulysses you shan't be. Only, what shall I call 
 you? I could n't call you Minerva, could I?'<^ 
 
 But without waiting for Van Buren's suggestion that 
 his ordinary name would do well enough, as if struck 
 with a sudden dismay she turned to the President. 
 
 "He has not been telling about the party, has he, 
 Mr. President?" she asked anxiously. "I came down 
 on purpose to tell you all about it." 
 
 " No, indeed, Mrs. Morland, I have left that for you," 
 Van Buren interposed. "It needs a more graphic tongue 
 than I carry." 
 
 "Sit down, Kitty, and tell us all about it," said 
 Jackson. "I was sure you would come, and Van 
 and I have been trying to while away the time with a little 
 stupid business. We were both expecting you." 
 
 " Oh, but I could n't do it justice sitting down. You 
 sit down, please, and I will show you how it was done," 
 said Kitty. And as the President sank back into his 
 chair she called to her husband, still talking to the 
 ladies : 
 
 "Come here a moment, please, Mr. Morland." 
 
 John came a little reluctantly; he did n't quite like 
 taking an active part in Kitty's burlesques, but he saw 
 no help for it. 
 
 "Now you be you, and I'll be Mrs. Huygens, and 
 Mr. Van Buren will be the Baron." Kitty was now 
 full of it, her eyes dancing with glee. "Now, Baron 
 
364 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 Krudener, you are going to bring up Mr. Morland and 
 introduce him to me." 
 
 Van Buren entered into the plan more readily than 
 Morland. He brought John up and introduced him in 
 the exact manner of the Baron. Kitty turned smilingly 
 to them at first, but saw Morland, and started back 
 haughtily. 
 
 "What! not the Secretary of State?" in a loud aside. 
 Then she turned back to Morland, took his arm stiffly, 
 and led him up toward Jackson. 
 
 " Now, Mr. President, you 're me, you know, and 
 Mr. Morland leads Mrs. Huygens to a seat beside me." 
 
 "What! Sit beside that creature! Nevair-r^l" said 
 Kitty, with true stage disdain. "Meestair Morlan', I 
 mek you my apologies. Baron Kjudener — adieu!" 
 
 Kitty turned to take the arm of an imaginary Mr. 
 Huygens and swept down the room. She came back 
 laughing. 
 
 "Have I exaggerated, Mr. Secretary?" 
 
 "Not much, Mrs. Morland. You could hardly 
 exaggerate it." 
 
 Jackson had been laughing with the others, thinking it 
 was only a little of Kitty's play, , but at Van Buren's 
 reply he turned to him sharply. 
 
 "Is that true. Van? Did that Dutch woman insult 
 my little Kitty in that way?" 
 
 "Practically true," said Van Buren soberly. 
 
 Jackson sprang up and began to pace the room after 
 his fashion when strongly moved, his brows knitting, 
 and all the lines of his face harsher and deeper. The 
 oath that he had scarcely used since Rachel's death 
 sprang to his lips: 
 
JOHN MORLAND 365 
 
 "By the Eternal! The cats shall not scratch my Kitty's 
 face with impunity. Huygens shall go home!" 
 
 Kitty was sober, too, now, and her eyes were flashing 
 in sympathy with the President's. 
 
 "I wish you would send them home, Mr. President. 
 How dared she treat Mr. Morland so! It does n't matter 
 about me — I am only Kitty McCabe; but he is a member 
 of your Cabinet and the peer of any man on the two 
 hemispheres!" 
 
 John hastened to interpose: 
 
 "Not Kitty McCabe, but Mistress Morland, Mr. 
 President, and I think neither Mrs. Morland, in a cooler 
 moment, nor I would like to make the little affair of 
 last night the talk of two continents." 
 
 Perplexity was not one of the emotions Jackson was 
 used to. Ordinarily he knew what he wanted to do, 
 and went straight to the point; but now he looked first 
 at Morland, and then Kitty. Lastly he turned to Van 
 Buren, and doubt was plainly expressed in his deep-set 
 eyes. Van Buren answered his glance. 
 
 " Mr. Morland is right. It 's not the kind of thing 
 to make a talk about, but I think we can find some 
 other means of punishing the Huygens." 
 
 "We will!" said Jackson firmly. "They shall at 
 least apologize." 
 
 He was silent a moment, and then his face cleared and 
 he turned his beaming glance on Kitty: 
 
 "I have it!" he exclaimed. "I will give a dinner 
 myself. "I will invite everybody that has any rank in 
 society and Kitty shall be the guest of honour." 
 
 In a moment he was full of his plan, as eager and 
 happy as a child. 
 
366 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 "Emily!" he called to Mrs. Donelson, "will you ring 
 for Major Lewis, please, and Mr. Trist? And we will 
 make out our list to-night with Kitty to help us." 
 
 "But — but — " stammered Kitty, "I was not going 
 into society any more. I thought I 'd better not." 
 
 "Not going into society!" thundered Jackson. "Are 
 you a coward, Kitty? Would you let the old cats drive 
 you off like that!" 
 
 Kitty, full of perplexity, looked at Morland, and he 
 came to her rescue. 
 
 "If I were you, Kitty, I 'd try it once more, anyway," 
 he said, laughing at her seriousness. "At the Presi- 
 dent's dinner, you know, they will have to behave." 
 
 " Or I '11 send them from the table like naughty chil- 
 dren," said Jackson, grimly. 
 
 He was not to be denied. Lewis and the secretary 
 came, and together they made out a list that included 
 "everybody" as Jackson had desired. No occupant 
 of the White House ever set a more magnificent table 
 than did Jackson, and when a week later his eighty 
 guests sat down in the great state dining-room it was 
 a brilliant spectacle indeed. Jackson was perforce 
 compelled to take in Mrs. Calhoun and seat her on his 
 right, but Kitty was on his left, and next to her was that 
 willing conspirator, the British Ambassador; and next 
 Mrs. Calhoun was the Secretary of State; and not far 
 down the table was Baron Krudener. Mrs. Calhoun 
 found herself in the heart of the enemy's camp, and it 
 required a moment of hard and rapid thinking, after 
 she had discovered her situation, to determine upon her 
 line of action. 
 
 An impartial observer, knowing accurately the con- 
 
JOHN MORLAND 367 
 
 dition of affairs and the strained relations between her 
 and the briUiant woman opposite her, would have found 
 her most admirable — showing sufficient courtesy to 
 Kitty not to seem offensive, while really quietly ignoring 
 her whenever possible. But they would have admired 
 Kitty also. That erratic young creature was in one of 
 her most audacious moods. She kept her end of the 
 table in an uproar of merriment which, yet, never passed 
 the line of decorum, Mrs. Calhoun found herself 
 feeling dazed as repartee, epigram, wit of every kind 
 volleyed back and forth across the table from the Secre- 
 tary of State to Kitty, back to Baron Krudener and 
 returned to Kitty or to Mr. Vaughan, and all of it politely 
 including her and calling for a contribution from her; 
 though Kitty and Van Buren so scintillated with wit 
 that she was too dazzled, as a rule, to more than smile 
 graciously and try to catch her breath before the ball 
 of conversation was flashing back again on entirely 
 different lines. 
 
 But, most of all, this same impartial observer would 
 have admired the President. While singling Kitty out 
 for every special attention, laughing loudest at her sallies 
 of wit, and beaming with kindly admiration whenever 
 his eyes fell on her, he yet, with that high-bred air of his, 
 never in the least seemed to neglect Mrs. Calhoun, and 
 never failed to connect the two in conversation in the 
 most skilful manner. 
 
 "Mrs. Morland, Mrs. Calhoun agrees with you en- 
 tirely," or, "I find, Mrs. Morland, that Mrs. Calhoun 
 differs with you slightly as to the merits of that question; 
 ask her to give you her opinion. You may find yours 
 modified by her greater experience in such matters." 
 
368 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 Kitty seconded this by-play of the President's ad- 
 mirably, and was either all graciousness or all deference 
 as the occasion demanded, mitil it became, finally, as 
 the dinner went on, an extreme annoyance to Mrs. 
 Calhoun; but she only betrayed it by the spot of colour 
 that deepened steadily in each cheek. 
 
 Morland was seated some distance down the table 
 on the opposite side from Kitty. He could catch fleeting 
 glimpses of her and could see that she was in the highest 
 of spirits and well taken care of by the President and 
 his aides. He could also see that Mr. Vaughan had 
 dropped into a little of his old air of devotion. He did 
 not know why that should trouble him, but it did, a 
 little. Except for that slight flaw, he was having a very 
 delightful time himself. He was sitting by Mrs. 
 Decatur whom he had not seen for many months. Mrs. 
 Decatur had gone to Paris about the time of his marriage 
 and this was her first appearance in society since her 
 return. He had been conscious of a little uncomfortable 
 feeling in first meeting her; he was not sure what her 
 attitude would be toward Kitty, and he had always liked 
 her and valued her good opinion. 
 
 But nothing could have been more charming than 
 her manner of meeting him — asking at once for his wife 
 and seeking her out to express her felicitations. It was 
 one of Kitty's signal triumphs of the evening, for it had 
 been in the Blue Room before dinner, and Mrs. Calhoun 
 had been standing near. Mrs. Decatur was more than 
 cordial to Kitty — she was almost affectionate in the in- 
 terest she showed in the young wife — and the stamp of 
 Mrs. Decatur's approval was a hall-mark in Washington 
 jociety. Mrs. Decatur had not been without method 
 
JOHN MORLAND 369 
 
 in this. She had heard of the feud that was rending 
 high circles, and she ' was determined to stand by the 
 young wife. She was genuinely sorry for Morland, 
 whose sensitive soul she knew and whom she had always 
 liked, and though she could not pretend to judge of Kitty's 
 past, the fact that Morland had married her proved that 
 he believed in her — " and that ought to be enough for the 
 rest of us," she said to her old friend. General Scott. 
 
 The General, being a soldier and ardently devoted to 
 Mrs. Decatiu", received her lightest word as law, and 
 was also one of those who hastened to pay his respects 
 to Kitty before dinner in the Blue Room. All this pleased 
 Kitty greatly, but she was not so entirely pleased that 
 Morland should seem so happily absorbed in his dinner 
 partner. She could not forget that they had been old 
 friends of years' standing, and Kitty had sometimes 
 believed that there had been a tenderer sentiment between 
 them than mere friendship. She may have seemed to 
 value John's love lightly for herself, but she was not yet 
 willing to see him too deeply interested in any one else. 
 There was one moment in particular, when, as she hap- 
 pened to glance in their direction, they seemed to be 
 deep in a confidential conversation, and then they both 
 glanced up at her. Kitty resented being their theme, 
 and resented the glance. 
 
 But she might not have resented either so keenly if 
 she had overheard, for Kitty was vain. 
 
 "I have a young artist friend coming over from Paris 
 next month," said Mrs. Decatur, "and I want you to 
 let him paint your wife's miniature — she is the most 
 beautiful creature I have ever beheld. I had forgotten 
 how radiantly beautiful she was." 
 
370 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 "Thank you, you are very good," said Morland, 
 stammering and blushing with delight, for Kitty's praises 
 were sweet to his ears. 
 
 It was at that moment that Kitty looked up and caught 
 the expression of mingled delight and embarrassment on 
 Morland's face. Mrs. Decatur glanced at Kitty at the 
 same moment. 
 
 "Oh, look! look at your wife, quick! That's the exact 
 pose and the exact expression if he can only catch it!" 
 
 Mrs. Decatur was all excitement. 
 
 Morland looked up hurriedly and Kitty looked away, 
 thinking their excited glances betrayed "conscious 
 guilt," as she phrased it. 
 
 "There! You were too slow," said Mrs. Decatur 
 with disappointment; "she looked away too soon. I 
 think my artist friend has a particular talent for catching 
 poses and expressions, and I would dearly like to 
 see the one I just caught on Mrs. Morland's face 
 reproduced." 
 
 "What was it?" said Morland, laughing. "You make 
 me curious." 
 
 "Oh, I don't believe I could describe it, it was such 
 a mingling of emotions; intense interest, proud disdain, 
 infinite tenderness, infinite haughtiness. Her face was 
 like a mirror with one swift emotion chasing the other 
 across its surface." 
 
 Morland was silent for a moment. It made him 
 tingle to his finger-tips to think that " intense interest," 
 "infinite tenderness," had been mirrored in Kitty's face 
 while looking at him, but he reflected with a sigh that 
 more than likely it was her neighbour on her left who 
 had called them forth and not her husband. Mrs. 
 
JOHN MORLAND 371 
 
 Decatur seemed to think he needed convincing as to 
 the merits of her artist. 
 
 "I would like to prove to you that my artist is all 
 I claim for him. He has done a miniature of me, and 
 if you like I will send it to you and you can show it to 
 Mrs. Morland. I am sure she will like him." 
 
 Of course, he was gratified, and he arranged to stop 
 for it on his way home from the office the next day, and 
 the rest of the evening was for Morland an unusually 
 pleasant one, between his agreeable partner who admired 
 his wife and the absence of those distressing batailles des 
 dames that had marked the two balls. 
 
 If Morland had had any lurking hopes that his ride 
 home with Kitty from this dinner might in some way 
 duplicate the ride home from Baron Krudener's ball 
 they were very quickly dispelled. Kitty might have 
 been an acquaintance made that evening who was 
 amiably trying not to appear bored on her homeward 
 ride; so polite was she, so formal, so patently making 
 an effort to be entertaining. 
 
 Morland was at first amused at this new freak of 
 hers, but when he attempted to laugh at her she turned 
 so frigid that he gave up being amused and became, 
 by turns, hurt and indignant. He had been quite full 
 of the miniature, intending to seize the first chance to 
 tell Kitty all the extravagant things Mrs. Decatur had 
 said of her, being very sure they would please her. But 
 with Kitty in this mood he very soon lost all desire of 
 pleasing her, and they separated at Kitty's door with a 
 quiet "Good-night, Kitty," from him as he went 
 on to his own rooms, and a cold " Good-night, Mr. Mor- 
 land," from her, as she closed her door behind her. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE DISSOLUTION OF A CABINET 
 
 TT WAS an epoch-making day in Holland's life, and 
 ■■■ it began badly. 
 
 He picked up the paper at the breakfast-table and 
 almost the first paragraph that met his eye was a veiled 
 stab at Kitty. Not so heavily veiled but that one familiar 
 with the old gossip would readily recognize the Secretary 
 of War and his wife in the references to "the peculiar 
 relations existing between two prominent members of 
 the court circle before their marriage." 
 
 He succeeded in so strangling in a cough the exclama- 
 tion that rose to his lips, that Kitty did not suspect him 
 of anything more than he confessed to, when she saw 
 him take out his pocket-knife, carefully cut the para- 
 graph from the paper, and fold it away in his vest pocket. 
 
 "What are you doing?" she asked curiously. 
 
 "Cutting out an item that may be of use to me," he 
 answered carelessly. 
 
 No sooner had he safely disposed of the obnoxious 
 paragraph than his eye fell upon a curious-looking letter 
 lying beside his plate. It was curious from the style 
 of the chirography which seemed to demand that he 
 open it instantly, and he obeyed the silent summons. 
 To his intense disgust it proved to be that most offensive 
 weapon of the low-minded against those in high places 
 — an anonymous letter — and this one was the vilest 
 
 372 
 
THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 373 
 
 of its type. Not that he stopped to read it, but it was 
 brief and his eyes took in almost at a glance some of its 
 sentences: "Revenge is sweet, and I have you in my 
 power, and I will roast you, and boil you, and bake you; 
 and I hope you may live long to prolong my pleasure. 
 Lay not the flattering unction to your soul that you can 
 escape me. I would not that death or any evil thing 
 should take you from my grasp for half the world." 
 
 He did not doubt for a moment that the paragraph 
 and the letter were the work of the same hand, nor did 
 he for a moment doubt that the hand was Montclair's. 
 He crumpled the letter hastily into his pocket but he 
 had not, this time, succeeded so well in strangling his 
 expletive of mingled astonishment and disgust, and 
 Kitty's suspicions were aroused 
 
 He succeeded in parrying her questions fairly well, 
 averring that he had received a troublesome business 
 communication and would have to be starting for the 
 department at once, if he walked down as he intended. 
 Kitty pushed her questionings no farther. She was vaguely 
 troubled by Morland's manner, but she had been more 
 or less troubled quite often of late by the political 
 situation, and she did not doubt that this morning's 
 letter had some connection with that. She knew that 
 a storm had been brewing for weeks; she only hoped 
 that Morland's letter did not mean that it was about to 
 break. 
 
 Kitty knew a little of the diflSculties in the political 
 situation, but she did not by any means know all. She 
 knew that three of the Cabinet, with the Vice-President 
 at their head, were on one side of an unbridged chasm, 
 and the remaining three, with the President at their 
 
374 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 head, were on the other — and that she represented the 
 chasm. She knew that so far no means had been found 
 to bring them closer together; what she did not know 
 was that even the official relations of these six Cabinet 
 members had, through the wars of their women-kind, 
 grown so strained that Cabinet meetings were becoming 
 an intolerable burden. Jackson stormed and fumed; 
 made demands that the recalcitrant members refused 
 to consider; and now was very seriously considering a 
 dissolution. 
 
 In the week following that ride home from Baron 
 Krudener's ball Morland had foimd himself on more 
 confidential terms with Kitty than ever before. He had 
 talked over the situation with her as he had not hereto- 
 fore, and he had tried to give her some hint of the pos- 
 sible event that she might not be wholly unprepared 
 for it. He was afraid Kitty would not enjoy being rele- 
 gated to private life after a brief taste of official honours, 
 but he himself thought, and Van Buren agreed with 
 him, that the only way to get rid of the three Cabinet 
 ministers who had made themselves thoroughly ob- 
 noxious to Jackson from the stand they had taken on 
 Kitty, was for Morland himself to resign. Van Buren, 
 who had been foremost in Kitty's defense, would also 
 resign. This would leave the three malcontents no 
 alternative but to do the same from very shame. For 
 Van Buren a place was prepared. The present Minister 
 to Great Britain should be recalled to take a seat in the 
 Cabinet and Van Buren should be sent to Great Britain. 
 It would be a point of advantage from which to work 
 the Presidential lever; for both Jackson and Van Buren 
 had determined that Van Buren should be Jackson's 
 
JOHN MORLAND 375 
 
 successor at the end of Jackson's second term. And 
 though the first and most cogent reason for Van Buren's 
 resignation was to break the cabal against Kitty, it 
 added a powerful argument for it that Jackson had 
 once said no member of his Cabinet should be his suc- 
 cessor, and Van Buren, once out of the Cabinet and 
 Minister to England, would get rid of his strongest 
 handicap. 
 
 But no place had been prepared for Morland. This, 
 for himself, would not have troubled Morland — he 
 had always his Tennessee plantation to return to and 
 no doubt, in time, he would be sent back to the Senate 
 — but the thought of how Kitty might like being de- 
 graded to the ranks did, at times, trouble him greatly. 
 
 The letter and the paragraph in the paper had, for 
 the time, driven from his mind the affair of the miniature 
 which he had fully intended to speak of to Kitty. This 
 was the second morning after the President's dinner, 
 and the day before he had called on Mrs. Decatur, as 
 he had promised, and brought her miniature home with 
 him to show Kitty. There had been no opportunity 
 the evening before to broach the subject to her, since 
 he had found on his return home that Kitty was giving 
 an informal dinner herself, and since his call on Mrs. 
 Decatur had made him unusually late and there was 
 only time before dinner for making a hurried toilet. 
 He might, however, have found time at least to mention 
 it to Kitty and offered it as an excuse for his tardiness, 
 but for the fact that Kitty was still keeping up that 
 same little air of cool aloofness that had annoyed him 
 so on the ride home from the White House. He was 
 more or less afraid of Kitty in this mood, or, at least, 
 
376 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 he did not like to tackle this mood of her's unless he felt 
 that he had plenty of leisure to do it in the most skilful 
 way; and he had a vague feeling, a sort of woman's in- 
 tuition, since he had no reason for the feeling, that anything 
 connected with Mrs. Decatur would not be a pleasing 
 topic to Kitty; in which case her cool aloofness would 
 probably become a bristling chevaux de jrise. 
 
 Swinging along through the brisk October air, his 
 eyes resting with unconscious pleasure on the scarlet 
 and gold glory of the October hills vmrolling themselves 
 along his path, his thoughts were anything but attuned 
 with the bright beauty of his surroundings. He loved 
 this walk from his home to the War Office, little more 
 than three miles away, taken while the morning was 
 still fresh and with the ground firm beneath his feet, 
 as it was sure to be in these cool October days. He 
 never failed to take it when the weather permitted, and 
 his brisk walk in the morning and his swift gallop home 
 in the afternoon on Selim's back were no doubt largely 
 responsible for that abundant physical vigour which 
 gave brightness and keenness to his glance, bronzed 
 his cheek with the glow of health, and showed in the 
 graceful and alert movement of every muscle. 
 
 Usually, on these walks, his thoughts kept pace with 
 his steps, looking forward to and planning the affairs 
 of the day with eager alertness or glancing happily back 
 over the events of the past. But to-day his thoughts 
 were laggard. He had believed himself to be making 
 progress toward winning Kitty's love in the week in- 
 tervening between the ball and the White House dinner, 
 but the last two days had set him farther back than 
 ever. There was no use in trying to deceive himself — 
 
JOHN MORLAND 377 
 
 he had always hoped that this marriage, which he had 
 claimed to be so entirely disinterested, would in some 
 vague future win him Kitty's love. Now he saw that 
 hope growing dim and the strain was beginning to be 
 too great for him. He could not live beside her every 
 day, dazzled by her beauty in all its protean phases, 
 bewildered by the swiftness of her changing moods, 
 charmed alike by her sweetness and her coldness, her 
 aspect of angel and of shrew — for Kitty could be both 
 in swift metamorphosis — he could not dwell with this 
 creature of sunshine and tempest, of smiles and frowns, 
 of laughter and tears, of melting moods and freezing 
 ones, without finding himself every day more hopelessly 
 entangled in the meshes of her charms, and more help- 
 lessly at the mercy of her moods. Did she but glance 
 pleasantly toward him, his heart beat wildly with hope; 
 did she speak coldly to him it sank, lead-weighted, in 
 despair. 
 
 It was no life to be living; he had been a fool ever 
 to have thought himself strong enough to undertake it. 
 If it had accomplished its purpose he believed he could 
 have grimly borne it; but instead of setting Kitty se- 
 curely above the shafts of scandal and slander it had 
 only made her a shining mark for their envenomed 
 darts. Kitty in obscurity might have lived down the 
 lying gossip, but Kitty on the heights was a constant 
 goad to the envious — they would never let her alone 
 until they had torn her from her high estate and bedraggled 
 her in the mire. Yes, Kitty's insight had been clearer 
 than his when she had declared that this marriage would 
 not save her, but ruin him. 
 
 He was striding along now at a tremendous pace, for 
 
378 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 his furious thoughts were goading him on. What would 
 he not give to be able to crush, once and forever, that 
 viper Montclair, whose vile paragraph in the morning 
 Telegraph and viler anonymous letter had roused his 
 smouldering wrath to a white flame! He turned into 
 a side street to make a short cut to his office and came 
 face to face with Miss Dayton. Some swift changes 
 in her expression at this unexpected meeting — alarm, 
 shame, hatred — came upon him as a revelation. In 
 a flash he knew it was not Montclair, but Miss Dayton, 
 that was responsible for paragraph and letter, and he 
 believed he understood her motives. He had always 
 known her to be infatuated with Montclair and insanely 
 jealous of him. Since the duel Montclair had not been 
 seen in Washington society; no doubt Miss Dayton 
 believed that Kitty's marriage had driven him into 
 seclusion, and she was taking the only revenge her small 
 soul could suggest on Kitty and on Kitty's husband. 
 
 He was about passing her with a distant acknowledg- 
 ment when this swift revelation came to him, and with 
 it as swift a resolution. He stepped directly in front 
 of her, thus barring her progress and compelling her to 
 stop. 
 
 "Miss Dayton," he said gravely, "I have something 
 to say to you. Will you permit me to walk with you a 
 little way?" 
 
 At finding herself so suddenly held up, and at the 
 gravity of Morland's tone. Miss Dayton turned a ghastly 
 white. Then, in a swift revulsion of feeling, an angry 
 flood of colour deluged her face and she spoke haughtily. 
 
 "I know of nothing you could wish to say to me, sir, 
 and I prefer not to be seen in your company." 
 
JOHN MORLAND 379 
 
 "I think you know of what I wish to speak," said 
 Morland sternly. "I will not inflict myself upon you 
 longer than necessary, but unless you spare me these 
 few moments I fear the results may be serious." 
 
 Miss Dayton turned white again at his menace, hesi- 
 tated a moment, then seemed to yield to necessity. 
 
 " Very well, sir," she said, struggling to speak calmly, 
 "but be as brief as possible, if you please." 
 
 Morland turned and walked by her side and began 
 his attack with no preliminary skirmishing. 
 
 "You understand, of course. Miss Dayton, that it is 
 of the paragraph in this morning's paper and the anony- 
 mous letter I received in my morning's mail that I wish 
 to speak." 
 
 "I understand nothing, sir," she interrupted hotly. 
 "What have I to do with your morning paper or your 
 morning mail?" 
 
 "Unfortunately for yourself, a great deal. I think I 
 can control the future utterances of the Telegraph. Mr. 
 Duff Green would not care to have a libel suit on his 
 hands, and to save himself he would, of course, reveal 
 the author of the paragraph and turn the libel suit over 
 to her. More than that, I think I can promise a correc- 
 tion and an apology in to-morrow's paper. Perhaps 
 it would be just as well that the author of the paragraph 
 should herself send in the correction and the apology 
 to Mr. Green; it might save some unpleasantness." 
 
 "You are assuming a great deal," said Miss Dayton 
 defiantly. "I know nothing about the paragraph you 
 are talking of." 
 
 "Possibly," Morland returned curtly. "But you 
 cannot deny the authorship of the letter in my pocket and 
 
380 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 which I am about to put into the hands of the Post- 
 ofBce Department as basis of prosecution against the 
 author. You know, probably, that the fine and penalties 
 are very severe in the United States Courts, that the 
 government does not permit the sanctity of its mails 
 to be tampered with with impunity — to say nothing of 
 the unpleasant publicity of such a prosecution." 
 
 Miss Dayton glanced at Morland's coat as if she medi- 
 tated tearing the letter from his pocket, but she only 
 said doggedly: 
 
 "You have no proof." 
 
 "Proof that will be sufiiciently convincing to any 
 United States jury," said Morland coolly. "Moreover, 
 I intend to write by to-day's mail to Mr. Montclair, in- 
 closing the paragraph and a copy of the letter and asking 
 him to use his influence with you to prevent any further 
 outrages of the kind. I have not, heretofore, held the 
 highest opinion of Mr. Montclair, but I believe he is 
 sufficiently a gentleman to be unwilling to descend to 
 such weapons for the sake of revenge, or to approve 
 of their use in the hands of his friends." 
 
 This last shot told. Miss Dayton stopped short in 
 her walk, and for a moment Morland could think of 
 nothing but a tigress at bay; her eyes emitting hot and 
 angry flashes, her lips curling tightly back from her 
 white teeth, and her nostrils dilated and quivering. 
 
 "You would be a fool for your pains," she snarled, 
 "he never loved Kitty McCabe!" 
 
 Morland had, perforce, stopped also. 
 
 "I agree with you; he never did," he said with exas- 
 perating coolness. "But Mrs. Morland, when she was 
 Miss McCabe, and several times in later years, had 
 
JOHN MORLAND 381 
 
 occasion to snub Mr. Montclair, and with a man of 
 that stamp wounded vanity has much the same effect 
 that wounded love has on others." 
 
 "It's a lie! a lie!" exclaimed Miss Dayton, fiercely, 
 now wholly beside herself. "Kitty McCabe snub Harold 
 Montclair, indeed! She has been ready to drop into 
 his arms at a sign from him for years. I 've no doubt 
 she will still be ready when he returns to Washington." 
 
 This was too much for Morland. 
 
 " Miss Dayton," he said, sternly. " I had hoped your 
 good sense would lead you to make the correction and 
 apology I have suggested, and that you would give me 
 your promise that there should be no more paragraphs 
 or anonymous letters; in which case I would not have 
 been compelled either to write to Mr. Montclair or to 
 put your letter in the hands of the post-office authorities. 
 I see that I was mistaken in you, and I shall immediately 
 do both." 
 
 He turned to go without glancing at her, but she put 
 a hand out and touched his arm timidly. He turned 
 back and was almost shocked, as his eyes fell on her, at 
 the sudden transformation. In that moment she 
 seemed to have visibly shrunk and dwindled, and years 
 of scorn and suffering had left their shameful ravages 
 on her white, drawn face. 
 
 "Mr. Morland," she said, speaking with a painful 
 effort at self-control, "do not write that letter, and de- 
 stroy the one you have in your pocket. I will send 
 Mr. Green a correction and an apology that will satisfy 
 you, and you need fear no further paragraph or letter 
 from me. I shall leave Mrs. Morland alone hereafter." 
 
 Morland had not been prepared for such complete 
 
382 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 submission. Her utter meekness almost aroused in 
 him a sense of pity. How she must fear and love that 
 scouiidrel! He could easily have pitied her but for a 
 fierce sense of indignation against her that she should 
 have wrought such suffering for Kitty, for whom he 
 was feeling at this moment an almost intolerable burden 
 of mingled pity and tenderness. It was something 
 that Miss Dayton had promised to start no new fires 
 of scandal, but who was to put out the mighty confla- 
 gration she had already kindled and which had long 
 since got beyond the control of any human agency. 
 Perhaps in time the fierce fires might bum themselves 
 out if no fresh fuel were added, and at last his little 
 Kitty might know rest and peace; but the freshness and 
 fragrance of youth would be gone; nothing could restore 
 her unsullied name, no one give her back the position 
 and honour in society of which she had been imright- 
 eously despoiled. No, he could not forgive this base 
 creature groveling in the dust before him, and he spoke 
 more sternly than at first. 
 
 "I will take your word for it. Miss Dayton, that you 
 will carry out the agreement as to the Telegraph, and 
 will, as you promise, refrain from all further persecution 
 of Mrs. Morland. I, on my side, will carry out my part 
 of the contract: I will not write to Mr. Montclair and I 
 will destroy your letter," and then, with the innate 
 Puritanism that, though a Southerner bom, was bred 
 in his fibre and bone, he added solemnly: 
 
 "Go, Miss Dayton, and perhaps a life spent in true 
 repentance and godly sorrow for the ruin and desolation 
 of a beautiful yoimg life may win for you at last forgive- 
 ness from your Creator whom you have most offended." 
 
JOHN MORLAND 383 
 
 He turned and left her, but her ashen face, the mute 
 appeal of her remorseful eyes haunted him and he turned 
 back to her. She was standing just as he had left her, 
 one hand half outstretched as if to call him back and 
 her gaze, shamed but imploring forgiveness, fixed on him. 
 Who was he to judge or to condemn? He came quite 
 close to her and spoke gently: 
 
 "Miss Dayton, neither vengeance is mine nor forgive- 
 ness. Shun one and seek the other from Him to whom 
 they both belong. But if you care, also, for the forgiveness 
 of an erring mortal like yourself, then know that you 
 have both his forgiveness and his pity." 
 
 As he began to speak her eyes fell before him and the 
 slow colour mounted steadily till it reached to the roots 
 of her hair. By the time he had finished tears were 
 running unchecked down her face and her whole frame 
 was shaken by convulsive sobbing. Morland believed 
 this was a safe mood in which to leave her, and he 
 walked quickly away toward the War Office. 
 
 Once there he found still another blow awaiting him. 
 He had known it was coming, but he was hardly expect- 
 ing it so soon, and his nerves felt as if they had been 
 stretched and hammered this morning, and could illy 
 endure any more. A note from Van Buren said to him 
 that, in a conference with the President the evening 
 before, they had both decided that the step they had 
 considered together had better be taken at once. Van 
 Buren inclosed a copy of his own letter of resignation, 
 but he said it seemed advisable that Morland should 
 present his first, and he begged him to send it that very 
 morning, that his own might not be delayed. 
 
 Morland read over the inclosed copy with a feeling of 
 
384 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 unfeigned admiration for Van Buren's political sagacity. 
 It was a masterly effort, and it was virtually putting 
 himself in nomination, offering himself as candidate, at 
 least, for Jackson's succession. The reason that he gave 
 for not being able to remain in his Cabinet was that since, 
 against his wish, he was being prominently talked of as 
 a successor to the President, he felt that the admini- 
 stration would be weakened, should he be retained 
 in the Cabinet, by the criticism of his official acts 
 naturally arising in the minds of those preferring some 
 other candidate. 
 
 It was a long paper and Morland read it through 
 carefully. He laid it down and for a few moments sat 
 buried in thought. "Well, the die is cast," he said to 
 himself. Van Buren's bark sinks but to another sea — 
 first the embassy to England and then the Presidency — 
 but what is to become of mine? 
 
 He roused himself and set himself to write his letter 
 of resignation. It had been all carefully talked over 
 with Van Buren and Jackson; he knew exactly what to 
 write and it occupied him only a few minutes — it was 
 not so long as Van Buren's. 
 
 He summoned a messenger and sent it to the President 
 and sent another messenger to call a carriage. Jeff and 
 Selim would not be at the War Office before two o'clock, 
 and he was going home. He had done enough for one 
 day; the routine work could safely be left to his assistants; 
 he would go and break the news to Kitty. 
 
 As he waited for the carriage, which seemed long in 
 coming, he was conscious of two insistent sensations. 
 The first was that he was a much-abused man, and he 
 counted over to himself, grimly, the shocks he had sus- 
 
THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 385 
 
 tained this morning: the paragraph in the paper, the 
 letter, the meeting with Miss Dayton, the demand for 
 his resignation. 
 
 But, sore and uncomfortable as these four blows had 
 left him, he knew that it was from no one of them that 
 he was at this moment experiencing his keenest suffering. 
 It was that second sensation that was benumbing all his 
 faculties and taking from him the resistance that had 
 supported him under each successive blow. And that 
 second sensation was the dread he felt, amounting almost 
 to terror, at he thought of telling Kitty that the Cabinet 
 was dissolved. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 MES. Decatur's miniature 
 
 KITTY stood behind the lace curtains of her boudoir 
 window watching Morland swinging ,away toward 
 Washington, whose domes and spires shone dimly 
 through the light haze of the October morning. Why 
 she was watching him, or what she was thinking as she 
 watched, would have been difficult to determine from 
 her expression. Discontent sat gloomily on her beautiful 
 face, and her merry gray eyes were sombre beyond 
 belief of those who had only seen them dancing and 
 sparkling at balls and dinners. 
 
 As a curve in the road hid him from view she turned 
 away from the window with a light sigh and began to 
 walk aimlessly about between her bedroom and her 
 boudoir, taking up the articles on her toilet-table as with 
 the idea of rearrangement, but laying them down in the 
 same spot again; flicking an invisible fleck of dust from 
 the top of a tall-backed chair; scrutinizing, with a house- 
 wife's eye, the arrangement of tester curtains and valence 
 curtains on her high four-poster bed, and all the time 
 saying over and over to herself: "He was never so 
 late in coming home before — and the afternoon after 
 the dinner at the White House! He must have stopped 
 to see Mrs. Decatur." 
 
 She had not seen the exterior of the letter that had 
 so disturbed him at the breakfast-table; if she had, she 
 
 386 
 
THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 387 
 
 could not for a moment have suspected it to be from 
 Mrs. Decatur. She had not, at first, had any such sus- 
 picions, but, as she sat down in her low sewing-chair 
 beside her work-table and took from its deep receptacle 
 a little garment that she was fashioning for Janet, she had 
 hardly taken more than ten stitches when her hands 
 with her work sunk helplessly in her lap, as a quick 
 suspicion flashed into her mind. 
 
 "It must have been from her," said Kitty, entirely 
 unconscious that she was speaking aloud, "and, no 
 doubt, he was walking so fast because he wanted to get 
 time to call on her and answer her note in person before 
 it was necessary to get to the office." 
 
 To do Kitty justice, she was ashamed of her suspicions 
 when she picked up her sewing again and began to 
 work feverishly; she knew it was unworthy of her and 
 unjust to John — but then, jealousy is usually unjust 
 and always unreasoning, and Kitty was in a terribly 
 unreasonable state of mind. She went over every 
 incident of the dinner party, dwelling most on Mrs. 
 Decatur's beauty and air of distinction, and the 
 apparent absorption of John in Mrs. Decatur and 
 Mrs. Decatur in John. 
 
 Janet came in, after a while, for her morning romp 
 with her mother, but Kitty could only engage in it in a 
 half-hearted way, and, after a while, she sent Janet out 
 with Emmeline to play in the garden. She was a notable 
 housekeeper and the hour had now arrived when it was 
 her custom to go over the house and see that the servants 
 had made everything spotlessly clean, and to discuss 
 with Dinah, the cook, the arrangements for the following 
 day. She put away her sewing reluctantly — it was 
 
388 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 easier, in her present frame of mind, to sit and sew and 
 brood over her "wrongs" than to bestir herself in active 
 duties and in consultations with the servants, which 
 must necessarily take her thoughts from herself. Kitty 
 was usually briskness itself in her household employ- 
 ments, but she went about them this morning in such a 
 laggard spirit that it was close on the hour of noon when, 
 finally, she reached John's door. His room was always 
 the last in her tour of inspection, and usually it had 
 been a pleasant task to her to see that this room, above 
 all others, was in the perfection of order. It would 
 have astonished him, and, no doubt, given him other 
 sensations also, if John had known the wifely interest 
 and pleasure Kitty took in seeing that every drawer 
 and shelf and hanging wardrobe were most neatly 
 arranged by her own deft hands; that the papers on his 
 desk and the books on his table were her own peculiar 
 care; and, most of all, that she allowed no one but herself 
 to touch that corner given up to his smoking parapher- 
 nalia — the stand with its boxes of cigars and jars oi 
 smoking tobacco; the rack with its pipes of every size 
 and shape and colour. 
 
 She had a half mind, this morning, not to go in there 
 at all. No doubt it looked well enough — the servants 
 would not dare to neglect that room of all the rooms 
 in the house, since, on the rare occasions on which she 
 had discovered lapses in its neatness, she had proved 
 to them that an indulgent mistress could, at times, be 
 a most severe one. But she conquered her reluctance, 
 turned the knob and opened the door, and immediately 
 felt that she had received a slap in the face. There, 
 occupying the most prominent place on John's dressing- 
 
JOHN MORLAND 389 
 
 table, was a miniature of a beautiful woman, and Kitty 
 had no need to come near enough to distinguish the 
 features to know that it was Mrs. Decatur. 
 
 Her first feeling was of blind anger. The brazenness 
 of it! Did he suppose she never came into his room, 
 or did he want to insult her? Kitty well knew that 
 such a token of friendship, from its costliness alone, 
 would not be given to a mere acquaintance; she could 
 readily see that it was the work of an artist of distinction 
 and the frame, set with jewels, was a gift for princesses 
 to make. But she knew, too, that its money value was 
 as nothing compared with the significance of giving the 
 reproduction of one's self to a man, and so life-like was 
 this reproduction that the eyes seemed to smile, and the 
 lips about to speak, and the beautifully modelled neck 
 and arms to be of warm and glowing flesh and blood. 
 
 Her first impulse was to throw the picture on the 
 ground and stamp on it and destroy it in her blind fury. 
 But Kitty was proud, and her pride held her anger in 
 check. No, neither John nor Mrs. Decatur should 
 ever know that she cared. She deliberately sat down 
 before the miniature and looked at it long and question- 
 ingly. Without doubt it was the picture of a very 
 beautiful woman, but Kitty knew herself to be as beautiful, 
 and she had only to lift her eyes to the mirror before her 
 to prove it. Certainly, also, there was an air of distinc- 
 tion about this charming portrait that was better than 
 beauty, but Kitty had been often told that she, too, 
 had a most distinguished air. Yes, there was something 
 else besides beauty and distinction in that picture: there 
 was a lovely soul shining from the soft eyes, and the 
 lines of the face were modelled by strength and purity 
 
390 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 of character. Kitty was afraid her own soul was not as 
 beautiful as it ought to be — she had thought so little 
 about her soul, being taken up so greatly with the things 
 of time and sense. And, as for character, she did n't 
 believe she had any strength of character; she was a 
 piece of thistledown blown about by every zephyr. Oh, 
 if she could only be different! If she could be more like 
 Mrs. Decatur! She was the woman John ought to 
 have married. And then, she fell to wondering why 
 he had not, and suddenly, she remembered! How could 
 she ever have forgotten it? John had sacrificed himself 
 to save her! She had known, at the time, that he did 
 not love her, but she had thought then it did not matter 
 so much. The French made marriages of convenience 
 — why should not she ? Sometimes, since her marriage, 
 she had half believed he did love her; perhaps, in time, 
 he might grow to be as fond of her as most men were of 
 their wives, though, for that matter, he had always 
 shown himself fond of her and tender of her and thought- 
 ful for her, with the same fondness and tenderness and 
 thoughtfulness she had learned to rely on years ago 
 when she was only little Kitty McCabe. It had not 
 occurred to her that he might easily, all this time, have 
 been loving some one else with a very different kind of 
 love, and that possibly he had had to sacrifice his love 
 and, perhaps, the love of that other woman, when he 
 undertook to save her from the lying gossip that she 
 knew her own thoughtlessness and wilful acts were 
 largely responsible for. 
 
 And, at that thought, Kitty burst into tears. Anger 
 was all gone, pride was all gone, there was nothing left 
 but heartrending sorrow and vain regrets. And much 
 
JOHN MORLAND 391 
 
 of the sorrow and all of the regrets were for John. Why 
 had she come into his life only to ruin it ? It should not 
 be ruined! She, herself, would mend it. Theirs had 
 never been a real marriage, she would tell John she 
 wanted him to set her aside, to legally divorce her — 
 oh, vile and horrid word! — and then marry Mrs. De- 
 catur. At that thought, she wept a few bitter tears for 
 herself alone, and then brightened a little. John would 
 never consent to it; of that she was sure. But her tears 
 and her sobs returned with redoubled violence. John 
 must be set free, and her only way to accomplish it was 
 to take Janet and run away, leaving a note to tell him 
 why, and that she would never — never come back. 
 No one but her mother should know where she had 
 gone — her precious, precious mother, whom she could 
 trust even with a secret like that. When she had found 
 a place where she and Janet could live, she would write 
 her mother; and then she would go to work. She 
 would teach singing and dancing and French, and, 
 if she could not eke out, with all her labour, quite 
 enough to keep herself and Janet alive, her mother 
 would help her. 
 
 By the time she had worked out the minutest details 
 of this noble elopement she was about to make for John's 
 sake, Kitty was in such an agony of grief, heartrending 
 sobs convulsing her and rivers of tears flowing from 
 her beautiful eyes — and all from the purest self-pity — 
 that she did not hear a step in the corridor outside, nor 
 a hand on the knob. John, opening the door quietly, 
 as was his wont, stood transfixed on the threshold. He 
 had been dreading this interview with Kitty, but at sight 
 of her in such an abandon of grief — her head bowed 
 
392 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 on his dressing-table, Mrs. Decatur's miniature clasped 
 in her hands — wonder, anxiety, alarm, put to flight 
 every thought of dread. He stood irresolute on the 
 threshold a moment, and then he stepped forward. 
 
 "Kitty!" he said in a voice of deepest concern, "What 
 is it?" 
 
 At his first word Kitty sprang to her feet and faced 
 him, the tears brimming from her startled eyes and 
 entirely oblivious of the picture still tightly clasped in 
 her hands. At sight of her anguish-stricken face all 
 John's long-restrained passion of tenderness broke loose. 
 What did it matter that Kitty did not love him? He 
 loved Kitty and he must comfort her. He took her 
 swiftly in his arms — he held her close. 
 
 "Kitty! My darling! My little love! My wife! 
 What is it?" 
 
 Kitty thrilled at every endearing word and most of 
 all at his "My wife," uttered in tones of inexpressible 
 tenderness, but none the less she struggled to free herself 
 and spoke angrily. 
 
 "You have no right to use such words to me, sir! You 
 do not love me, and it is not I who should be your wife 
 — it is Mrs. Decatur." 
 
 And the strong grasp of John's arms having slackened 
 at the sound of her angry voice, she sprang away from 
 him and extended Mrs. Decatur's picture toward him 
 at arm's length with the true air of a tragedy queen. 
 But Kitty was not thinking of airs — it was all very real 
 and terrible to her, and she was quite sure her heart was 
 breaking while she was uttering those words that John 
 would have to resent even if he loved her; they were 
 probably sealing her doom and preparing the way for 
 
JOHN MORLAND 393 
 
 that final separation from him, and she ought to be glad 
 for his sake, but oh, she could not be I 
 
 Neither did it strike John as play-acting — it was all 
 very real and terrible to him, too. Also, there was 
 something very puzzling about it, for John was slow of 
 grasping an entirely new conception, and this one of 
 Kitty that was gradually penetrating his brain and his 
 heart was so entirely new! So wholly different! Could 
 it be possible? Could Kitty be jealous? And what 
 did jealousy argue, if not love? At this point John 
 uttered a great cry. It was his soul bursting its prison 
 bonds and shouting aloud for joy: 
 
 "Kitty! You love me!" 
 
 He gathered her to his heart with such strength and 
 such passion, no mortal could have doubted longer. 
 Kitty did not doubt — at last she knew. 
 
 And Mrs. Decatur's miniature lay on the floor for- 
 gotten by both of them. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE WORLD WELL LOST 
 
 WHETHER it was half an hour later or an hour, 
 neither John nor Kitty could have told. It 
 seemed ages that they had been sitting side by side on 
 that deep davenport, the chief ornament of John's rather 
 severe room. What had they not talked of in the century 
 they had been sitting there together — if they were to 
 count time by their emotions ? The wonder of it would 
 never cease to Kitty that John had loved her all this time 
 passionately and devotedly; that he had had to school 
 himself every day and hour not to let her discover it. 
 
 "Why did you not tell me so when you asked me to 
 marry you?" she demanded with delightful sternness. 
 "I always supposed you married me either from a ro- 
 mantic generosity, to save my reputation, or from a canny 
 care of your owni" 
 
 "Oh, Kitty 1" John's exaggerated horror might have 
 moved Kitty to smiles another time, but not now. "You 
 could not think I would sacrifice you to save 'my repu- 
 tation. Say you never thought it." 
 
 "I didn't think it often," said Kitty, candidly, "but 
 sometimes I did; because you said so, you know, and I 
 was brought up to trust you irbplicitly." 
 
 "Who brought you up?" asked John. 
 
 " I believe I never was brought up — I grew," said Kitty, 
 soberly, thereby antedating a famous speech in fiction. 
 
 394 
 
THE PATIENCE OF JOHN MORLAND 395 
 
 Whereupon John proceeded to make a more wonderful 
 discovery than Kitty's had been. 
 
 "When did you begin to care for me, Kitty?" he asked, 
 timidly. 
 
 "Before I can remember," said Kitty, softly, her 
 curling lashes veiling her eyes, where tender memories 
 were brooding. 
 
 "What? No coquetries, Kitty, and no parables! I 
 really want to know," said John, severely. 
 
 Kitty sat erect and turned to look into John's eyes. 
 In so doing she freed herself from his encircling arm, 
 and he possessed himself of her hand instead. She 
 could hardly bear his glowing glances, but she had 
 something she wanted to say. 
 
 "John," she said, resolutely, and then she stopped 
 and threw in a little parenthesis. "Oh, how delightful 
 it is to be able to say 'John' just as much as I like! To 
 think I have missed so many months of it!" 
 
 John shook his head dolorously. 
 
 "But go on, dear; when did you first want to call me 
 'John'?" 
 
 "I would n't say it to any one but you," began Kitty, 
 and then she saw how foolishly that sounded and floun- 
 dered a little. " I mean — of coiu-se, I would n't say it 
 to any one but you — but I mean — if you were not 
 just the kind of man you are, I would n't say it to you; 
 but you would n't misunderstand me." 
 
 "Of course not!" said John soberly; and he could 
 not resist drawing her a little closer to him; Kitty in 
 this femininely inconsequential mood was irresistible. 
 But she drew away from him again. 
 
 "Don't, John, please! Wait 'till I 've finished. I 
 
396 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 may shock you greatly." And then she hurried on: 
 "If you had asked me to marry you any time before 
 Mrs. Adams's ball to General Jackson I would have 
 married you, for though then I had never thought of 
 loving you, or of you loving me, I know now that the 
 mingled feelings I had always had for you — admira- 
 tion, honour, trust, confidence — were something quite 
 different from ordinary friendship and needed only a 
 word to fuse them into love." 
 
 "Oh, Kitty, Kitty!" John groaned, seeing in a flash 
 how his own stupidity had been responsible for Kitty's 
 troubled career as wife and widow. 
 
 "Wait, please," said Kitty, putting the most beautiful 
 hand in the world — firm and soft and white, and ex- 
 quisitely modeled — over John's lips, "it's shocking 
 enough to confess having loved a man before he ever 
 thought of loving me, but you will be still more shocked 
 before I have finished." 
 
 And such a lovely colour flamed up into her cheeks 
 as she spoke, that no man in the world could have resisted 
 doing what John did. Whereupon Kitty pushed him 
 away and retreated, pouting, but more beautifully rosy 
 than before, to the other end of the davenport. 
 
 " Now, stay exactly where you are until I have finished," 
 she commanded, "or you shall not hear a word more. 
 But perhaps you don't care about hearing? Perhaps 
 I bore you?" cunningly. 
 
 John's only answer was a look, but it seemed con- 
 vincing. Kitty went on, with her eyes on her hands in 
 her lap nervously toying with a filmy handkerchief as 
 she talked. 
 
 "You know how much in love I was with my husband. 
 
JOHN MORLAND 397 
 
 Even after he began — to do badly — and when — for 
 weeks and months I did not hear from him, I still loved 
 him, or tried to. But I would get very angry and resent- 
 ful and hard, at times, and think it was no use; and if 
 he did not care, why should I? And then I would try 
 to amuse myself with that man — whose name I shall 
 never utter again!" said Kitty, in a white flame for a 
 moment; "and then you would look at me reproach- 
 fully, or perhaps you would speak to me and I would 
 be in a towering rage because I could not bear to have 
 you think ill of me. And sometimes I knew you must 
 imagine me a great deal worse than I really was, and 
 that made me reckless and I tried to shock you. Oh, 
 I was always thinking, 'What will he think of me?' and 
 trying to defy you and hurt you. 
 
 "And then came Will's death, and it was such a shock! 
 I thought God was punishing me for — for — thinking 
 so much about you. And then you went away for the 
 summer, and I tried not to think of you once, and 
 only think of Will, but sometimes I could n't help it; 
 and when I came back to Washington in the fall, and 
 that man began to ask me to ride with him, I was glad 
 to go, for I thought that would help me to forget and — 
 I had not heard a word from you all summer. I thought 
 perhaps it would punish you a little when you came 
 back and heard about it. 
 
 "And then you came back and bought Brown Bess 
 for me, and I thought perhaps you did care, a little. 
 And then that day you saw me riding on Brown Bess 
 with him, and I was terribly mortified at first and then 
 furious because you could have thought me capable of 
 deliberately betraying your trust. And I sent for you 
 
398 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 to come to mother's room; and there was just one moment 
 when — when — I thought — you were going to tell 
 me you loved me — and you did n't — and I was humili- 
 ated and angry; and I said to myself, you should never 
 have another chance, though I knew you would never 
 want it. And then you went away, suddenly, because 
 Mrs. Jackson died, and while you were away I heard a 
 dreadful thing that people were saying about you, so 
 I went everywhere with that other man and would 
 hardly look at you when you came back, so that people 
 might know it was false. And then, at last, you asked 
 me to marry you, and I knew that you had heard it, too, 
 and that was the reason you were asking me, and that 
 you did n't love -me a bit; and, oh, it broke my heart to 
 have you ask me when you did n't love me and I loved 
 you so — so — hard!" 
 
 And here Kitty had to struggle with tears and 
 John moved swiftly toward her, but she held him back. 
 
 "And all these long months since our marriage you 
 never once said that you loved me, though I could see, 
 sometimes, that you were sorry for me, and that only 
 made me angry. And then, at the dinner-party the other 
 night, for the first time it occurred to me that the reason 
 you did not love me was because you loved some one 
 else. And then — this morning — I went into your 
 room — and there was — her — miniature — and oh, 
 oh, oh!" said Kitty, and could no longer keep back the 
 storm of tears, and no longer tried to keep back John, 
 who was in a madly ecstatic frame of mind at this dis- 
 closure — that Kitty had loved him so long. 
 
 It took some time for Kitty to be fully comforted, 
 and for John's raptures to subside sufficiently to let him act 
 
JOHN MORLAND 399 
 
 again like a sane man — though it seemed long to neither 
 of them — and then John bethought himself that he 
 still had that disclosure to make that he had so much 
 dreaded. He no longer dreaded it in the same way, 
 but it seemed cruel to mterrupt the bliss of this hour 
 with tidings that, no matter how bravely Kitty might 
 take them, could not but give her pain; yet he knew 
 that the papers would soon be full of it and, no doubt, even 
 at this moment rumours of it were flying about the city 
 and any chance might bring them to Kitty; and he 
 wanted to tell her himself, to soften it as best he could, 
 and console her if she should need consolation. 
 Lifting her hand to his lips, he began: 
 "What a little hand it is, Kitty, to have such tremen- 
 dous power." 
 
 "Power?" inquired Kitty, not understanding him. 
 "Yes, power. Do you know what people are saying ?" 
 that it is not Calhoun that will be the next President 
 — as every one supposed a year ago — but Van Buren, 
 and that it is all Mrs. Morland's doings — that it is 
 her hand that is guiding the 'Ship of State' just now." 
 
 "Do they say that?" asked Kitty, pleased for the 
 moment, as any woman might have been — or any man, 
 either — to have such power ascribed to her. And then, 
 with a quick revulsion of feeling, and an anxious little 
 pucker between her eyes: 
 
 " Do you quite like it, John ? Do you like to have people 
 saying these things?" 
 
 "Why not?" asked John evasively. "I hear that 
 Calhoun himself attributes all his trouble with the admin- 
 istration to you, and that he said the other day if Van 
 Buren should be our next President, it would be all 
 
400 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 Kitty McCabe's doings. He has no business to be 
 calling you Kitty McCabe, but I rather think he was 
 right in the rest of his speech." 
 
 Kitty tried to smile, as she knew he expected her to, 
 but she was thinking some rather sober thoughts. 
 
 " I am afraid, Kitty, you would n't like losing all this 
 power," said John, a little anxiously. "You know, 
 they call you now, jokingly, 'The first lady of the land.' 
 You would n't like going down to Tennessee and living 
 on a plantation all alone with me, going to no more 
 balls and dinners." 
 
 "How do you know, sir?" said Kitty, looking up at 
 him with eyes that said she would like to go anywhere 
 in the world with him. "Just try me and see." 
 
 "I'm afraid I'll have to, Kitty. The Cabinet's 
 dissolved," John blurted out, seeing that he was never 
 coming to the point. 
 
 "The Cabinet dissolved?" said Kitty, bewildered. 
 "What's that?" 
 
 "I don't wonder you don't know what it means," 
 explained John. "It is a very serious step, indeed, and 
 has never before been found necessary in the history of 
 the country. It seems to be the only way to get rid of 
 the obnoxious three and restore harmony, and so I have 
 sent in my resignation, the Postmaster General is to 
 remain but Van Buren is going to send his, and the other 
 three will be compelled to, for very shame. I am no longer 
 Secretary of War, Kitty, and you are only plain Mistress 
 Morland." 
 
 Kitty received this startling announcement with a 
 moment of absolute silence, and John regarded her 
 anxiously. 
 
JOHN MORLAND • 401 
 
 "Do you care so much, Kitty?" he asked, tenderly. 
 
 She looked up at last, and John was appalled at the 
 change that had come so Swiftly. Her face was white and 
 drawn, and her eyes were anguish-stricken — the eyes 
 of some tender creature that has received a mortal hurt. 
 
 "Oh, I knew it, I knew it!" she moaned. "I knew 
 1 never ought to marry you! I knew I would ruin your 
 life! Now it's all over — your career is at an end, 
 and it's all my doing!" 
 
 "Why, Kitty!" exclaimed John, astounded that she 
 should take it in that way, and almost crushing her in 
 his strong arms with the vehemence of his remonstrances, 
 " I always knew you were a little goose — very dear, 
 and very sweet, but still a little goose, you know. 
 Career! The career of a Southern planter is the one I 
 like the best, but I '11 go back to the Senate and be Presi- 
 dent, perhaps, before you know it." 
 
 But Kitty was not to be laughed out of her remorse 
 and woe, and John said at last, fervently: 
 
 "Kitty, is it only for me you are grieving? Don't 
 you know that if I never saw Washington again — if 
 I were set adrift, penniless, to earn your bread by the toil 
 of my hands and the sweat of my brow, I would still be, 
 except for the way it affected you, the happiest man in 
 the world since, at last, I know you love me?" 
 
 There was no chance for Kitty to reply, for at that 
 moment there came a rap at the door. Kitty sprang 
 guiltily away from John, but he held her fast, and she 
 rather liked his masterful way. 
 
 "It's only Jeff, Kitty; I know his knock, and he'll 
 have to get used to it; he may as well begin right away. 
 Come in, Jeff." 
 
402 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 Certainly it was a very astonishing picture that met 
 Jeff's eyes as he opened the door, for, with the astute- 
 ness of the Southern slave, he had known very well the 
 formal relations existing between his master and "Miss 
 Kitty," as he still called her; but no trained English 
 servant's face could have been more impassive than 
 Jeff's black one as he came forward and handed John 
 a formidable-looking packet. John recognized at once 
 the executive seals; Jackson's reply to his letter of resig- 
 nation, no doubt, and he congratulated himself that he 
 had told Kitty before its arrival, as he was very sure, in 
 her new, wifely character, she would expect to know its 
 contents; and the explanation might have been awkward. 
 
 "What is it? Why don't you open it?" Kitty de- 
 manded, as Jeff closed the door behind him, and John 
 showed no signs of interest in his interesting-looking 
 packet. 
 
 "Only a reply to my letter of resignation," said John, 
 "but I '11 open it, if you like." 
 
 "Of course I like; perhaps he won't accept it," said 
 Kitty, hopefully. 
 
 "Oh, don't be building any false hopes of that kind, 
 little Kitty," said John. "Jackson and Van Buren and 
 I planned it together." 
 
 He was opening the packet as he spoke, and his face 
 showed such swift amazement, such bewilderment, 
 slowly brightening to pleased comprehension, that Kitty 
 was beside herself with curiosity. 
 
 "Oh, John, John!" she fairly shook him in her im- 
 patience, "don't keep me on tenterhooks! What can 
 it be?" 
 
 "Kitty," said John, rousing himself slowly from his 
 
JOHN MORLAND 403 
 
 stupor and speaking almost solemnly, "it is my com- 
 mission as Minister to the court of Spain!" 
 
 Kitty was awestruck, too, for a moment, but only 
 for a moment. Then she burst into a rapture of delight 
 in her old, child-like fashion, and all trace of the woe- 
 begone Kitty was lost in this radiant creature. 
 
 "Oh, John, John! Minister to Spain! Ambassadress 
 to Madrid! That 's a thousand times better than being 
 Mrs. Secretary of War. Oh, I never thought I would 
 see Europe! We '11 go to England and visit mother's 
 family; and we '11 go to Paris, John, and buy such 
 clothes!" 
 
 She sprang up and ran to the centre of the room. 
 
 "See me make my curtsey, John, when I 'm pre- 
 sented at court. Are n't you glad I was taught it so well 
 at dancing-school?" 
 
 And she took hold of her gown and made a low and 
 sweeping curtsey, every movement stately as a queen's. 
 
 "Did I do it well, John?" But she gave John no 
 chance to answer one of her questions. 
 
 "And I 'm so glad I studied Spanish at Miss English's 
 school; now I can talk to the dons. It must have been 
 fore-ordained." 
 
 "Do you speak Spanish?" John managed to inter- 
 polate his surprised question; he was always discovering 
 some new accomplishment of Kitty's. "I know you 
 chatter French like a magpie, but I did n't know you 
 knew Spanish." 
 
 "Oh, not quite so well as I do French," said Kitty, 
 loftily, " but well enough to make those handsome Span- 
 iards think my foreign accent is adorable. And, oh, 
 John!" — and here Kitty, who had been pirouetting 
 
404 THE PATIENCE OF 
 
 about the room in her excitement, stopped and looked 
 down at John still sitting on the davenport, her hand 
 clasped tragically on her breast — "they will know 
 nothing about those horrid stories and I can begin all 
 over again! And nobody will dare treat the wife of the 
 United States Minister as they have treated me herel" 
 
 Kitty's chin was quivering and John's eyes were misty. 
 Kitty indifferent! Kitty too insensible as he had some- 
 times irritably thought! How she must have suffered! 
 But while John, in his slow fashion, was thinking these 
 thoughts and getting ready to speak comforting words, 
 Kitty had rushed forward and thrown herself on her 
 knees beside him and seized his hand, which she pas- 
 sionately kissed before John could stop her. She looked 
 up at him with eyes where the dew had drenched the 
 stars — the eyes of a madonna or an angel. 
 
 "John! John!" The voice was low and rich and 
 vibrant, it might have been the E string of a 'cello speak- 
 ing. "You think I am giddy, and foolish, and pleased 
 with the thought of courts and Paris and new gowns, 
 but what makes me so happy, so madly happy, is the 
 thought that I hwve n't ruined your life; and that at last 
 / am really married to the best and noblest and grandest 
 man in the world!" 
 
 They were so absorbed in one another that they did 
 not see the little figure standing in the open doorway 
 between Kitty's room and John's; an angel figure, with 
 fluffs of golden hair and with blue eyes regarding them 
 wonderingly. They both started at the sound of a 
 cherubic voice: 
 
 "I had a dream last night. I dram my Papa Morland 
 kissed my mamma." 
 
JOHN MORLAND 405 
 
 "Come here, Janet," John called, "dreams come 
 true sometimes." He waited until Janet had come 
 slowly forward, then he took Kitty's face between his 
 hands and kissed her — her lips, her cheeks, her eyes, 
 her brow. When he released her Kitty sprang to her 
 feet, all rosy confusion before her child, and John put 
 his arm around Janet. 
 
 "Did you have any more dreams, Janet?" he asked, 
 wondering what the little soul behind those eyes was 
 thinking. 
 
 "Yes," said Janet, gravely, "I dram about the 
 sairies" — Janet had not yet learned to manage her 
 f's — " and the angels, and the birdies, and God." 
 
 "You angel!" Kitty cried, catching Janet in her arms 
 and hiding her blushing face on the baby's shoulder. 
 
 John rose from the davenport and stood with his 
 arms about both, his face as radiant as Kitty's. He was 
 facing Kitty's door and in that doorway Mrs. McCabe, 
 who had followed Janet upstairs, suddenly appeared. 
 At the picture presented to her she retreated hastily, 
 but not before John had caught a glimpse of her. 
 
 "Come here. Mother," he called. 
 
 He had not called her mother since the night of his 
 wedding; a feeling that Kitty would not like it and that 
 he had no right to use the title had prevented. Mrs. 
 McCabe had noticed it and felt it, but thought she under- 
 stood, and had suffered as only a mother can suffer in the 
 belief that this marriage, too, from which she had hoped 
 so much, was proving a failure. There was a ring in 
 John's voice now that she had never heard before; she 
 turned back at its compelling strain. 
 
 "Come, Mother," said John, joyously, looking over 
 
406 THE PATIENCE OE JOHN MORLAND 
 
 Kitty's head straight into her eyes as she came slowly 
 toward them. "Kitty and I are going to Spain to take 
 possession of our castle there, and you shall come with 
 us and stay as long as you will and make our happiness 
 full and brimming over!" 
 
 One arm still encircled Kitty and Janet as he extended 
 the other hand and drew Mrs. McCabe into the little 
 group, and Kitty, rosy and smiling and tearful, put the 
 arm that was not about Janet around her mother, and the 
 little family was complete; for no one thought of Tim, 
 who did not think of them. 
 
 "Grandma, I dram last night that Papa Morland 
 kissed my mamma, and he did," said Janet, gravely, 
 thus giving her grandmother information of the most 
 wonderful event that had yet come into her baby life. 
 
 [the end] 
 
F! :li