"Have you the exact date about you, mother?"
"What date, Stephen?"
"When I shall leave St. Louis for the United States Senate. And you must not forget that there is a youth limit in our Constitution for senators."
Then the widow smiled,—a little sadly, perhaps. But still a wonderfully sweet smile. And it made her strong face akin to all that was human and helpful.
"I believe that you have the subject of my first speech in that august assembly. And, by the way, what was it?"
"It was on 'The Status of the Emigrant,'" she responded instantly, thereby proving that she was his mother.
"And it touched the Rights of Privacy," he added, laughing, "which do not seem to exist in St. Louis boarding-houses."
"In the eyes of your misguided profession, statesmen and authors and emigrants and other public charges have no Rights of Privacy," said she. "Mr. Longfellow told me once that they were to name a brand of flour for him, and that he had no redress."
"Have you, too, been up before Miss Crane's Commission?" he asked, with amused interest.
His mother laughed.