"All of you do your joint worst.

You can not shake the faith of Elisabeth Churchill in me, nor mine in her.

Oh, yes, by all means do your worst!" "Very well," she said, with a catch of her breath.

"At least we both said--'on guard!' "I wish I could ask you to attend at our wedding," I concluded, as her carriage approached the curb; "but it is safe to say that not even friends of the family will be present, and of those not all the family will be friends." She did not seem to see her carriage as it paused, although she prepared to enter when I opened the door.

Her look, absorbed, general, seemed rather to take in the sweep of the wide grounds, the green of the young springtime, the bursting of the new white blossoms, the blue of the sky, the loom of the distant capitol dome--all the crude promise of our young and tawdry capital, still in the making of a world city.