"Good enough, Tom. It's all right. Yes, Sir, it's all right," said the Statesman, with no trace of his recent disquiet, but with pleasant, kindly eyes and a countenance made smooth by the justice of his cause and the pride with which he regarded his determination to defend his good name. "But, Tom, you really need rest. Oh, of course, I don't mean that you should give up public life. No, Sir," he went on, looking at me, "when a man has once been a servant of the people, he is never satisfied to fall back among the powerless 'masters.' And, Sir--of course it wouldn't do to say it everywhere, but I will say it here in confidence--I have often looked at some poor, obscure devil and have said to myself, 'Why the deuce do you want to live? You can't possibly enjoy yourself, for nobody pays any attention to you.'" And then spoke a voice at the door. I looked around and there Mrs. Estell stood, holding a slipper in each hand, her arms hanging limp. I did not catch the words she uttered first, but these I heard and always shall remember: "And perhaps he has a wife who worships him, and children that think he's a god. And if I were a man I would rather be in his place than to have a world of flattery." With a swift step and a graceful bend she laid the slippers at her husband's feet. The Senator clapped his hands and so did I, but Estell neither moved nor opened his eyes until he heard the slippers tap upon the floor, and then he turned his head to say, "I'm much obliged to you." And at that moment she broke away from the soft and dignifying influences of a Southern atmosphere; she sprang upon a chair, snatched the foils from the wall, laid one of them across my knees, sprang back and with mock tragedy cried, "Defend yourself." But before I could get out of my astonishment to say a word, and as the dull eyes of her husband looked up sharp with surprise, she bowed with a condescending grace and with mimic magnanimity threw down the foil and said: "Ah, I forgot. You are wounded and a prisoner." The Senator looked on with pride; his face glowed and his eyes snapped, but Estell grunted: "Mr. er-er-Belford," he began, again becoming vaguely conscious that I was on the face of the earth, "the Senator had no son; and that explains why he made a tomboy of his daughter." He laughed weakly as he said this, and as a piece of good humor it was a failure, but it proved to me that he was not wholly ill-natured. "That's all right," the Senator replied, with his eyes on Mrs. Estell, who had again mounted a chair to replace the foils on the wall. "That's all right, but her tomboyishness has made her decidedly human, and, Sir," he added, as the young woman stepped down, "I guess she succeeded in winning the love of one of the best men in the State. Eh. How's that, old fellow?" "Not quite so bad as I expected," Estell answered, rousing up. "You could have studied longer and framed it worse. By the way, Mr. Belmont--"