"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!"