The dining-rooms are admirable examples of magnificent distance. The room is long, the tables are long, the kitchen is a long way off, and the waiters a long time going and coming. The meals are long, - - so long that there is literally no end to them; they are eternal. It is customary to mark certain points in the endless route of appetite with mile-stones named breakfast, dinner, and supper; but these points have no more positive existence than the imaginary lines and angles of the geometrician. Breakfast runs entirely through dinner into supper, and dinner ends with coffee, the beginning of breakfast. Estimating the duration of dinner by the speed of an ordinary railroad-train, it is twenty miles from soup to fish, and fifty from turkey to nuts. But distance, however magnificent, does not lend enchantment to a meal. wonder is that the knives and forks are not made to correspond in length with the repasts, in which case the latter would be pitchforks, and the former John-Brown pikes.

The

The people of Washington are as various, mixed, dissimilar, and contrasted as the edifices they inhabit. Within the like area, which is by no means a small one, the same number of dignitaries can be found nowhere else on the face of the globe, -nor so many characters of doubtful reputation. If the beggars of Dublin, the cripples of Constantinople, and the lepers of Damascus should assemble in Baden-Baden during a Congress of Kings, then Baden-Baden would resemble Washington. Presidents, Senators, Honorables, Judges, Generals, Commodores, Governors, and the Exs of all these, congregate here as thick as pickpockets at a horse-race or women at a wedding in church. Add Ambassadors, Plenipotentiaries, Lords, Counts, Barons, Chevaliers, the great and small fry of the Legations, Captains, Lieutenants, Claim - Agents, Negroes, Perpetual-Motion-Men, Fire-Eaters, Irishmen, PlugUglies, Hoosiers, Gamblers, Californians, Mexicans, Japanese, Indians, and OrganGrinders, together with females to match

all varieties of males, and you have a vague notion of the people of Washing

ton.

It is an axiom in physics, that a part cannot be greater than the whole; and it will be recollected, that, after Epistemon had his head sewed on, he related a tough story about the occupations of the mighty dead, and swore, that, in the course of his wanderings among the damned, he found Cicero kindling fires, Hannibal selling egg-shells, and Julius Cæsar cleaning stoves. The story holds good in regard to the mighty personages in Washington, but the axiom does not. Men whose fame fills the land, when they are at home or spouting about the country, sink into insignificance when they get to Washington. The sun is but a small potato in the midst of the countless systems of the sidereal heavens. In like manner, the majestic orbs of the political firmament undergo a cruel lessening of diameter as they approach the Federal City. The greatest of men ceases to be great in the presence of hundreds of his peers, and the multitude of the illustrious dwindle into individual littleness by reason of their superabundance. And when it comes to occupations, it will hardly be denied that the stranger who beholds a Senator "coppering on the ace," or a Congressman standing in a bar-room with a lump of mouldy cheese in one hand and a glass of "pony whiskey" in the other, or a Judge of the Supreme Court wriggling an ugly woman through the ridiculous movements of the polka in a hotel-parlor, must experience sensations quite as confounding as any Epistemon felt in Kingdom Come.

In spite of numberless receptions, levees, balls, hops, parties, dinners, and other reunions, there is, properly speaking, no society in Washington. Circles are said to exist, but, like that in the vortex of the whirlpool, they are incessantly changing. Divisions purely arbitrary may be made in any community. Hence the circles of Washington society may be represented sciagraphically in the following diagram.

The Circle of the Mudsill includes Negroes, Clerks, Irish Laborers, Patent and other Agents, Hackmen, Faro-Dealers, Washerwomen, and Newspaper - Correspondents. In the Hotel Circle, the Newest Strangers, Harpists, Members of Congress, Concertina-Men, Provincial Judges, Card-Writers, College-Students, Unprotected Females, "Star" and "States" Boys, Stool-Pigeons, Contractors, Sellers of Toothpicks, and Beau Hickman, are found.

The Circle of the White House embraces the President, the Cabinet, the Chiefs of Bureaus, the Embassies, Corcoran and Riggs, formerly Mr. Forney, and until recently George Sanders and Isaiah Rynders. The little innermost circle is intended to represent a select body of residents, intense exclusives, who keep aloof from the other circles and hold them

all in equal contempt. This circle is known only by report; in all probability it is a myth. It is worthy of remark that the circles of the White House and the Hotels rise higher and sink lower than that of the Mudsill, but whether this is a fact or a mere necessity of the diagram is not known.

Society, such as it is, in the metropolis, is indulgent to itself. It intermeddles not, asks no impertinent questions, and transacts its little affairs in perfect peace and quietude. Vigilant as the Inquisition in matters political, it is deaf and blind, but not dumb, as to all others. It dresses as it pleases, drinks as much as it chooses, eats indiscriminately, sleeps promiscuously, gets up at all hours of the day, and

does as little work as possible. Its only trouble is that "incomparable grief" to which Panurge was subject, and "which at that time they called lack of money." In truth, the normal condition of Washington society is, to use a vernacular term, "busted." It is not an isolated complaint. Everybody is "busted." No matter what may be the state of a man's funds when he gets to Washington, no matter how long he stays or how soon he leaves, to this "busted" complexion must he come at last. He is in Rome; he must take the consequences. Shall he insult the whole city with his solvency? Certainly not. He abandons his purse and his conscience to the madness of the hour, and, in generous emulation of the prevailing recklessness and immorality, dismisses every scruple and squanders his last cent. Then, and not till then, does he feel himself truly a Washington-man, able to look anybody in the face with the serene pride of an equal, and without the mortification of being accused or even suspected of having in all the earth a dollar that he can call his own.

Where morals are loose, piety is seldom in excess. But there are a halfdozen of churches in Washington, besides preaching every Sunday in the House of Representatives. The relative size and cost of the churches, as compared with the Public Buildings, indicates the true object of worship in Washington. Strange to say, the theatre is smaller than the churches. Clerical and dramatic entertainments cannot compete

with the superior attractions of the daily rows in Congress and the nightly orgies at the faro-banks. Heaven is regarded as another Chihuahua or Sonora, occupied at present by unfriendly Camanches, but destined to be annexed some day. In the mean time, a very important election is to come off in Connecticut or Pennsylvania. That must be attended to immediately. Such is piety in Washington.

The list of the unique prodigies of Washington is without limit. But marvels heaped together cease to be marvellous, and of all places in the world a museum is the most tiresome. So, amid the whirl and roar of winter-life in Washington, when one has no time to read, write, or think, and scarcely time to eat, drink, and sleep, when the days fly by like hours, and the brain reels under the excitement of the protracted debauch, life becomes an intolerable bore. Yet the place has an intense fascination for those who suffer most acutely from the tedium vita to which every one is more or less a prey; and men and women who have lived in Washington are seldom contented elsewhere. The moths return to the flaming candle until they are consumed.

In conclusion, it must be admitted that Washington is the Elysium of oddities, the Limbo of absurdities, an imbroglio of ludicrous anomalies. Planned on a scale of surpassing grandeur, its architectural execution is almost contemptible. Blessed with the name of the purest of men, it has the reputation of Sodom. The seat of the law-making power, it is the centre of violence and disorder which disturb the peace and harmony of the whole Republic, the chosen resort for duelling, clandestine marriages, and the most stupendous thefts. It is a city without commerce and without manufactures; or rather, its commerce is illicit, and its manufacturers are newspaper-correspondents, who weave tissues of fiction out of the warp of rumor and the web of prevarication. The site of the United States Treasury, it is the home of everything

but affluence. Its public buildings are splendid, its private dwellings generally squalid. The houses are low, the rents high; the streets are broad, the crossings narrow; the hacks are black, the horses white; the squares are triangles, except that of the Capitol, which is oval; and the water is so soft that it is hard to drink it, even with the admixture of alcohol. It has a Monument that will never be finished, a Capitol that is to have a dome, a Scientific Institute which does nothing but report the rise and fall of the thermometer, and two pieces of Equestrian Statuary which it would be a waste of time to criticize. It boasts a streamlet dignified with the name of the river Tiber, and this streamlet is of the size and much the appearance of a vein in a dirty man's arm. It has a canal, but the canal is a mud-puddle during one half the day and an empty ditch during the other. In spite of the labors of the Smithsonian Institute, it has no particular weather. It has the climates of all parts of the habitable globe. It rains, hails, snows, blows, freezes, and melts in Washington, all in the space of twenty-four hours. After a fortnight of steady rain, the sun shines out, and in half an hour the streets are filled with clouds of dust. Property in Washington is exceedingly sensitive, the people alarmingly callous. The men are fine-looking, the women homely. The latter have plain faces, but magnificent busts and graceful figures. The former have an imposing presence and an empty pocket, a great name and a small conscience. Notwithstanding all these impediments and disadvantages, Washington is progressing rapidly. It is fast becoming a large city, but it must always remain a deserted village in the summer. Its destiny is that of the Union. It will be the greatest capital the world ever saw, or it will be "a parched place in the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited," and "every one that passeth thereby shall be astonished and wag his head."

SPRING at last stole placidly into summer, and Marguerite, who was always shivering in the house, kept the company in a whirl of out-door festivals.

"We have not lived so, Roger," said Mrs. McLean, "since the summer when you went away. We all follow the caprice of this child as a ship follows the little compass-needle."

an

And she made room for the child beside her in the carriage; for Mr. Raleigh was about driving them into town, exercise which had its particular charm for Marguerite, not only for the glimpse it afforded of the gay, bustling inland-citylife, but for opportunities of securing the reins and of occasioning panics. Lately, however, she had resigned the latter pleasure, and sat with quiet propriety by Mrs. McLean. Frequently, also, she took long drives alone or with one of the children, holding the reins listlessly, and ranging the highway unobservantly for miles around.

Mrs. Purcell declared the girl was homesick; Mrs. Heath doubted if the climate agreed with her: she neither denied nor affirmed their propositions.

Mr. Heath came and went from the city where her father was, without receiving any other notice than she would have bestowed on a peaceful walkingstick; his attentions to her during his visits were unequivocal; she accepted them as nonchalantly as from a waiter at table. On the occasion of his last stay, there had been a somewhat noticeable change in his demeanor: he wore a trifle of quite novel assurance; his supreme bearing was not mitigated by the restless sparkle of his eye; and in addressing her his compliments, he spoke as one having authority.

Mrs. Laudersdale, so long and so entirely accustomed to the reception of homage that it cost her no more reflec

tion than an imperial princess bestows on the taxes that produce her tiara, turned slowly from the apparent apathy thus induced on her modes of thought, passivity lost in a gulf of anxious speculation, while she watched the theatre of events with a glow, like wine in lamplight, that burned behind her dusky eyes till they had the steady penetration of some wild creature's. She may have wondered if Mr. Raleigh's former feeling were yet alive; she may have wondered if Marguerite had found the spell that once she found, herself; she may have been kept in thrall by ignorance if he had ever read that old confessing note of hers: whatever she thought or hoped or dreaded, she said nothing, and did nothing.

Of all those who concerned themselves in the affair of Marguerite's health and spirits, Mr. Raleigh was the only one who might have solved their mystery. Perhaps the thought of wooing the child whose mother he had once loved was sufficiently repugnant to him to overcome the tenderness which every one was forced to feel for so beautiful a creation. I have not said that Marguerite was this, before, because, until brought into contrast with her mother, her extreme loveliness was too little positive to be felt; now it was the evanescent shimmer of pearl to the deep perpetual fire of the carbuncle. Softened, as she became, from her versatile cheeriness, she moved round like a moonbeam, and frequently had a bewildered grace, as if she knew not what to make of herself. Mr. Raleigh, from the moment in which he perceived that she no longer sought his company, retreated into his own apartments, and was less seen by the others than ever.

Returning from the drive on the morning of Mrs. McLean's last recorded remark, Mr. Raleigh, who had remained to give the horses in charge to a servant,

was about to pass, when the tableau within the drawing-room caught his attention and altered his course. He entered, and flung his gloves down on a table, and threw himself on the floor beside Marguerite and the children. She appeared to be revisited by a ray of her old sunshine, and had unrolled a giant parcel of candied sweets, which their mother would have sacrificed on the shrine of jalap and senna, the purchase of a surreptitious moment, and was now dispensing the brilliant comestibles with much ill-subdued glee. One mouth, that had bitten off the head of a checkerberry chanticleer, was convulsed with the acidulous tickling of sweetened laughter, till the biter was bit and a metamorphosis into the animal of attack seemed imminent; at the hands of another a warrior in barley-sugar was experiencing the vernacular for defeat with reproving haste and gravity; and there was yet another little omnivorous creature that put out both hands for indiscriminate snatching, and made a spectacle of himself in a general plaster of gum-arabicdrop and brandy-smash.

"Contraband?" said Mr. Raleigh.

"And sweet as stolen fruit," said Marguerite. "Ursule makes the richest comfits, but not so innumerable as these. Mamma and I owe our sweet-tooth and honey-lip to bits of her concoction."

"Mrs. Purcell," asked Mr. Raleigh, as that lady entered, "is this little banquet no seduction to you?"

"What are you doing?" she replied. "Drinking honey-dew from acorns.” "Laudersdale as ever!" ejaculated she, looking over his shoulder. "I thought you had no sympathy with""

"But I like to see other folks take'"

"Their sweets, in this case. No, thank you," she continued, after this little rehearsal of the past. "What are you poisoning all this brood for?"

"Mrs. Laudersdale eats sweetmeats; they don't poison her," remonstrated Katy.

"Mrs. Laudersdale, my dear, is exceptional."

Katy opened her eyes, as if she had been told that the object of her adoration was Japanese.

"It is the last grain that completes the transformation, as your story-books have told; and one day you will see her stand, a statue of sugar, and melt away in the sun. To be sure, the whole air will be sweetened, but there will be no Mrs. Laudersdale."

"For shame, Mrs. Purcell!" cried Marguerite. "You're not sweet-tempered, or you'd like sweet dainties yourself. Here are nuts swathed in syrup; you'll have none of them? Here are health and slumber and idle dreams in a chocolate-drop. Not a chocolate? Here are dates; if you wouldn't choose the things in themselves, truly you would for their associations? See, when you take up one, what a picture follows it: the plum that has swung at the top of a palm and crowded into itself the glow of those fierce noon-suns; it has been tossed by the sirocco, it has been steeped in reeking dew; there was always stretched above it the blue intense tent of a heaven full of light, always below and around, long level reaches of hot shining sand; the phantoms of waning desert moons have hovered over it, swarthy Arab chiefs have encamped under it; it has threaded the narrow streets of Damascus - that city the most beautiful- on the backs of gaunt gray dromedaries; it has crossed the seas, — and all for you, if you take it, this product of desert freedom, torrid winds, and fervid suns!"

"I might swallow the date," said Mrs. Purcell, "but Africa would choke me."

Mr. Raleigh had remained silent for some time, watching Marguerite as she talked. It seemed to him that his youth was returning; he forgot his resolves, his desires, and became aware of nothing in the world but her voice. Just before she concluded, she grew conscious of his gaze, and almost at once ceased speaking; her eyes fell a moment to meet it, and then she would have flashed them aside, but that it was impossible; lucid lakes of light, they met his own; she was forced to con