A Little Girl in Old Washington

by Amanda M. Douglas

So Jaqueline had been going her own gait pretty well, and developed an inordinate fondness for pleasure and flattery. She was too wise to believe all the pretty speeches, all the earnest speeches even. But they had a rosy fragrance, and perhaps the good thing about some of them was that they faded. She was not an inborn coquette, hungry for lasting power over men's hearts, but the present moment satisfied her. The variety fascinated her.

Roger Carrington, watching this, was at first rather amused, then a little hurt, and finally, when he began to ask himself seriously how much true regard Jaqueline had for him, grew passionately jealous. If she had said, "I have made a sad mistake; I find that I have a deeper regard for Lieutenant Ralston than I imagined; will you give me back my freedom?" he would have been manly to the heart's core, and released her, though it had wrenched away the beautiful dream of his life.

But she affected to treat this merely as a friendship. Could she not see?

When other attentions became troublesome she sheltered herself behind Ralston. He was engrossed in the affairs of the country. He had a feeling at times that he was only playing a part in life, that instead of being merely an ornamental soldier he should go out on the frontier and take an active part in the struggles. He was not meant for a statesman, though he listened, fascinated, to Marshall and Randolph and Clay and Calhoun, and envied them their power of moving the multitude. Then, it did not seem very heroic to be getting the level of a street and calculating the filling in, to consider Tiber Creek and Darby Marsh, to superintend rows of trees and dikes and blind ditches. But when he confessed his dissatisfactions to Jaqueline, she said with a wise, earnest, sisterly air: "Oh, do not go away! There will be an election in the coming autumn, and how do you know but we may be plunged into war and need you for our own defense? Arthur thinks so much of your advice and counsel."

That was very true. The thing was to build up Washington. Other cities had grown by slow accretion, and been a hundred and more years about it. Congress had ordered a city on a slender purse. There had been magnificent plans and a half-finished Capitol, a Presidential residence that Mrs. Adams had not inaptly termed a "great castle"; there were scattered beautiful houses, and though more than a dozen years had passed it was not yet a city of homes; but there was a new amour propre awakening. The poverty of those days can scarcely be understood in these times of lavishness.

So energetic young men like Arthur Jettson and Dr. Collaston found scope for all their energies, and were warmly welcomed.

The latter had hardly decided where to make his home until he met Patricia Mason. And now he adopted his nation's Capital at once.

His answer was favorable, and he hurried to his sweetheart with all impatience, though he had been cool enough before. And she accepted him, as any sensible girl with a strong liking for a young man every way worthy of her regard was likely to do. Jane was called in presently to rejoice with them.

"Oh, Patty!" she exclaimed afterward, kissing her enthusiastically, "it's just a splendid marriage! I'm so glad to keep you in Washington! You and Jaqueline and I will have such good times—we think alike on so many subjects. I am happy for you, my dear. And I do wonder if you'll want to spin out your engagement—"

"He won't," returned Patty, her pretty face red as a rose, and her eyes suffused with a kind of prideful love. "Why, he spoke of it and thought a month would do! The idea! And all the wedding clothes to get and make! And he never once suggested that we should go to New York, as Preston Floyd did!"