Let us go." As they passed down the steps and out into the Avenue, Mrs.Lee turned to Carrington as though she had been reflecting deeply and had at length reached a decision.
"Mr.Carrington," said she, "I want to know Senator Ratcliffe." "You will meet him to-morrow evening," replied Carrington, "at your senatorial dinner." The Senator from New York, the Honourable Schuyler Clinton, was an old admirer of Mrs.Lee, and his wife was a cousin of hers, more or less distant.

They had lost no time in honouring the letter of credit she thus had upon them, and invited her and her sister to a solemn dinner, as imposing as political dignity could make it.

Mr.Carrington, as a connection of hers, was one of the party, and almost the only one among the twenty persons at table who had neither an office, nor a title, nor a constituency.
Senator Clinton received Mrs.Lee and her sister with tender enthusiasm, for they were attractive specimens of his constituents.

He pressed their hands and evidently restrained himself only by an effort from embracing them, for the Senator had a marked regard for pretty women, and had made love to every girl with any pretensions to beauty that had appeared in the State of New York for fully half a century.

At the same time he whispered an apology in her ear; he regretted so much that he was obliged to forego the pleasure of taking her to dinner; Washington was the only city in America where this could have happened, but it was a fact that ladies here were very great stickiers for etiquette; on the other hand he had the sad consolation that she would be the gainer, for he had allotted to her Lord Skye, the British Minister, "a most agreeable man and not married, as I have the misfortune to be;" and on the other side "I have ventured to place Senator Ratcliffe, of Illinois, whose admirable speech I saw you listening to with such rapt attention yesterday.