When Richard De Jarnette and the man stepped into the hall a few moments later Philip was alone. The boy had gone to get the dog. The man looked startled to see a child there, and opened his mouth to speak, but Richard took Philip's hand, said good-night hastily, and what the man called after them was not heeded. As they went out of the yard the child with the close observation of his age, asked, "Unker Wichard, what do they have a wed paper for?" Mr. De Jarnette was hurrying with such rapid strides to the station that his nephew could hardly keep up with him. He was intent on making the train, and did not hear, and in his hurrying Philip forgot all about the red paper. CHAPTER XXXVIII THE MOTHER COMES TO HER OWN It was ten days or more after this that Mrs. De Jarnette's carriage stood at the door ready to convey her to the Capitol. It was confidently expected that the bill would come up now within a few days and there were a good many working bees around that classic edifice. Mrs. Belden had asked Mrs. De Jarnette to go with her that afternoon. Since her talk with Judge Kirtley Margaret had been unremitting in her labors. Mrs. Belden told Mrs. Pennybacker that she had never done more efficient work. There was something very touching, she said, in her plea, so simply but so effectively urged, "It will not help me, but it will help other women." "It almost seems," said Mrs. Pennybacker, in repeating this to Judge Kirtley only the day before, "as if this thing were slowly purging her of self. She is being tried in the fire, but she will come out of it with the dross burned away. I never have seen a woman grow in character as Margaret De Jarnette has in this trying half year." "I trust she may get her reward," said the Judge. "But there is no telling. I tremble for her if there should be an adverse decision." "There is one thing,"--Mrs. Pennybacker spoke solemnly.--"The Lord is preparing Margaret for whatever He is preparing _for_ her. Her ear has been opened to sorrow's cry, and her hands will never be utterly empty again. 'God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.' That is as true now as it was when Cowper--under the shadow of a great cloud--said it." Margaret was buttoning her gloves when there came a knock at the door. She had just come down from Rosalie's room. Since her talk with Mrs. Pennybacker on the Ellipse, she had been particularly careful not to neglect the poor girl, and had tried in every way to brighten her up. "She is so weak and her situation so peculiar that she might easily see slights that were never intended," she was saying to herself. She took the card that the servant handed her and glanced at the clock with a shade of annoyance. She would just have time to meet her engagement at the Capitol without interruption. As she looked at the card her face blanched. It read "Mr. Richard De Jarnette."