The lead thus unexpectedly opened by Bess was promptly followed up by Margaret, who was growing quick to see openings and to take advantage of them. At her suggestion a note was despatched the next day to Senator Black, asking for an interview. At the hour appointed the two girls, chaperoned by Mrs. Pennybacker, were there.

It would be hardly possible for a story like Margaret's, heard from the quivering lips of the chief actor in the tragedy and listened to under the spell of her sad, beautiful eyes, to fail of reaching the heart of a man like Senator Black. At its close he reached over and took her hand.

"Mrs. De Jarnette," he said, with genuine feeling, "you have suffered greatly. Let me assure you of my sincerest sympathy and, what will be more to you, I am sure, of my cordial support of this bill. The story of your wrongs under the old law has done for your cause with me what volumes of arguments about property rights could not have effected. To my mind a mother's right to her child is not a question that admits of discussion. You can rely upon me to do what I can for you. I shall esteem it a pleasure to introduce you to some of my colleagues and let them hear your story also."

She was expressing her earnest thanks for this offer when he added, "I only wish it were possible for the bill to do for you personally as much as you can do for the bill."

Somehow the words chilled the glow at Margaret's heart. What did he mean? Why, the bill would do everything for her if it passed. Before she could recover herself sufficiently to ask an explanation the Senator had gone on gallantly, with a wave of the hand toward Bess, "You certainly have an able pleader in this young lady, Mrs. De Jarnette. I am not sure that my support should not be credited at least half to her." And Bess went home on air.

As they were going out of the committee-room they came upon Richard De Jarnette, face to face. He was just going in. They passed each other with the briefest acknowledgment of acquaintance.

"What do you suppose he is doing there?" asked Margaret, much startled.

"Isn't that the district committee-room? He may be there on business with the Commissioners."

"He is there to fight this bill! I know it!"

"Well, there's one good thing," said Mrs. Pennybacker,—"he will interview Senator Black at an auspicious moment."

When they were seated in the carriage Margaret said thoughtfully. "What do you suppose Senator Black meant by wishing that the passage of the bill might help me? Of course it will help me. It will give me Philip if it passes."

"I wondered about that myself," Mrs. Pennybacker replied. Then after a pause she said casually, "There is no doubt that this law, if it ever becomes one, will apply to cases that occurred before it was enacted, is there?"

"Why, no!" said Margaret, with a startled look. "I shouldn't think so."

After Bess, even, had thus "broken into the Senate," as John Harcourt expressed it in his congratulatory speech delivered when—amid her blushes—the story was repeated to him, Mrs. Pennybacker felt almost cowardly in so persistently refraining her hand (figurative for tongue). It really had not been so dreadful to beard the lion in his den as she had supposed. Perhaps she owed it to the cause, or to Margaret at any rate, to give any assistance in her power. True, she had been more or less occupied with Rosalie since Margaret had taken up this new work, but of late the girl had taken a fancy to be alone more anyway. She certainly would not miss her if she should take an afternoon off.

So one day late in the winter—one of Margaret's days at Elmhurst—when Mrs. Greuze came around in the morning to drum up recruits for a raid on Senator Southard in the afternoon Mrs. Pennybacker was persuaded into going. They were to meet in the Rotunda and proceed in a body to the Senator's committee-room.

On her way to the capitol Mrs. Pennybacker stopped at the home of Mrs. Van Dorn. Mrs. Greuze had said, "It is desirable to interest as many women as possible, from different walks of life, in the passage of this bill—women who will make the Committee see by their presence and their persistency how vital a thing it is to them. There is some truth in what Senator Southard says about many women not caring. It is to the indifference of the women themselves that most of the failures of the woman cause can be traced. We must get a number to go, not necessarily to talk—judgment must be exercised in the selection of the ones to do that—but to give the moral support of their presence." Mrs. Pennybacker determined when she heard this that she would try to induce her niece to go with them.

"Maria will look all right," she said reflectively, recalling whimsically as she said it the young woman who had once shown her "The History of the World" in sixty volumes brilliantly bound in red and gold. She had not had time to acquaint herself with the names of the authors, but the friendly agent had assured her that they were the proper ones, and she said to Mrs. Pennybacker with considerable pride, "They will look all right in a library, won't they?"

Yes, if there was no talking to be done Maria would be a very desirable acquisition. But, the matter being laid before her, it appeared that she could not be acquired.

"I should be willing to go—I think it would be quite interesting to meet some of those gentlemen—of course I don't know anything about the bill—but I really can't, don't you know. I am going to give Toddlekyns a party this afternoon, a birthday party. He is eight, and I have invited eight ladies with their dogs. The birthday cake has just come in. Isn't it lovely! I am going to have eight pink candles on it. Then Mrs. Thompson has sent me the cutest gift—eight lamb chops on a dish with a ruff of paper tied with pink ribbon around each bone. Aren't they dear! She asked me what my color scheme was, but I thought of course it was flowers. I didn't think of such a thing as a gift like this. So appropriate, wasn't it?"

"Very!" returned Mrs. Pennybacker, dryly. "I have often given a plate of chops myself (with the meat removed) to the dog next door, but I have never thought of putting on the flub-dubs. I will do so when I get home. I want to go back with all the Washington kinks!"

Mrs. Van Dorn looked at her suspiciously, saying, "Aunt Mary, I cannot understand your aversion to dogs."

"I have no aversion to dogs. It's doglets I hate. I don't call that thing a dog. Look at him now!"

Toddlekyns, put upon his feet at this moment, looked for all the world like an animated, decorated monkey muff. His silky tail was tied with a blue ribbon and a long forelock combed down over his eyes was adorned in like manner; his face and legs were lost in a mass of curling silky hair; and really it was difficult for one confronting Toddlekyns to tell whether he was in danger of a head end or rear end collision.

"Now a real dog," continued Mrs. Pennybacker, reflectively, "is different. There is no more beautiful sight than a child hanging about a Scotch Collie or a big Newfoundland. A child might hug a dog and I would think it was all right.... I don't wonder that a shepherd is fond of an animal that can round up sheep with the intelligence of a man. A mastiff in a back yard—one that has to be chained up to keep him from chewing up any intruder—has something almost human about him. He knows that his home is his castle. There is character about such a dog as that.... And the St. Bernards! Why, Maria, I hope I am not irreverent—when I think of those noble creatures plowing through snow and storm to rescue some poor perishing mortal, it seems to me almost a type of the Divine love that came to seek and to save the lost. It does, indeed. But it's a far cry from the monks and dogs of St. Bernard to the idle women and the poodles of the cities."

"The very best people," said Mrs. Van Dorn firmly, "make much of dogs. It is the thing to do. Why, Aunt Mary, the bench shows of New York are simply immense."

"I know it. I've read about them. There certainly is something strange about how people that have this dog craze let it run away with them. Mrs. Joel Bennett used to tell a story on a Kansas City minister who was very fond of dogs. She was living with her son George who had a lot of them and was a good hand to train them. She was very sick at one time and this minister, who was her pastor, used to come out often to see her—giving spiritual comfort to her and dog talk to George, I suppose. Well, one day he had but a short time to stay, having to catch a train, and he asked her if there was any special subject she would like to have him converse upon. Mrs. Bennett was a very old-fashioned Christian, so she said yes, she would like to have him talk to her about the plan of salvation. 'Mrs. Bennett,' he said, 'there is nothing I feel so sure of, and nothing that it delights me more to talk about than the plan of salvation.' Just then George came in with one of the dogs. Naturally they fell to talking about it. 'And,' Mrs. Bennett used to say with a twinkle of her eye, 'that was the last I heard of the plan of salvation!'"

She smiled to herself reminiscently, as she always did in recalling her friend.

"How is Margaret?" asked Mrs. Van Dorn, after a pause. The dog story did not seem to require comment. It was rather pointless, but she politely ignored that. "I suppose she is still lonely without Philip. Or does she get over it?"

"I can't say that she has got entirely over it."

"Aunt Mary, I don't know that you will agree with me," Mrs. Van Dorn said with some firmness, "but I think if Margaret would get her mind on something besides herself—society or something of that kind—she would be a great deal better off. Or philanthropy would be a good thing for her." Mrs. Van Dorn had never yet been told about Rosalie and her child. "Some of those things are in excellent form. I was just reading as you came in about one that seems to me so beautiful. So—so inspiring."

"What is it?" Mrs. Pennybacker was glad to know of any phase of philanthropy that interested her niece.

"It is a form of rescue work. The article is headed

'Permanent Refuge for Homeless Dogs.'

I'll read it to you.

"'At a recent meeting of the Bullion Society for Homeless Dogs, held at the residence of Mrs. Sarah Holden, it was unanimously agreed to change the original name of the organization to Animal Rescue League of Washington, in view of the widened scope of the work. Arrangements were completed for the purchase of a home in the neighborhood of Hyattsville, Md., where a permanent refuge will be established for the care of dogs. It is the intention of the league to remove the home to their new quarters at Hyattsville early in the autumn, where they will keep open house throughout the year.'

"Isn't that a beneficent charity!" she exclaimed, a rapt expression on her unlined face.

"Beneficent fiddlesticks!" returned Mrs. Pennybacker, "If I were called upon to characterize that proceeding with exactness, Maria, I should call it sentimental gush gone to seed. What are they going to save these dogs from? a dependent old age—or a life of shame?"

Like most persons of her calibre Mrs. Van Dorn was deficient in a sense of humor. She missed the satirical note and answered literally, "They are going to provide a home for the homeless and befriend the friendless."

"That sounds well."

"It is Christlike!" exclaimed Mrs. Van Dorn, with more enthusiasm than she usually exhibited. "Why, the officers elected—I didn't read you their names—are away up in society."

"It is certainly Christlike to befriend the friendless," returned Mrs. Pennybacker, ignoring the social status of the officers elected—"but it strikes me there needs to be a modicum of sense displayed in the choice of subjects. As I remember it, Christ always gave the preference to those that do not perish like the beasts. He came looking after the lost sheep of the house of Israel, it is true, but they were sheep with souls. I don't seem to remember that he spent much time hunting up stray dogs. Indeed, the only case I recall in which He paid attention to animals at all was in the Gadarene country, and that was rather disastrous to the animals. You remember he sacrificed a whole herd of swine (two thousand in number, Mark says) to save the reason of one poor suffering lunatic. I think that was about the right proportion. To my mind it shows the relative importance he attaches to the two.... How Christian women can walk around here in the southwest quarter of Washington, and then give their energies to rescuing dogs is more than I can understand!"

When she had got a block or so away from the house she opened her rather tightly set lips to remark to herself,

"It is just as well. She might have been tempted to say something. Some of these brilliantly bound volumes do have such fool things in them!"