adjournment should arrive, and Morse, who had anxiously watched the dreary course of business all day from the gallery of the Senate chamber, went with a sad heart to his hotel and prepared to leave for New York at an early hour the next morning. His cup of disappointment seemed to be about full. With the exception of Alfred Vail, a young student in the University, through whose influence some money had been subscribed in return for a one-fourth interest in the invention, and of Professor L.D. Gale, who had shown much interest in the work and was also a partner in the enterprise, Morse knew of no one who seemed to believe enough in him and his telegraph to advance another dollar. As he came down to breakfast the next morning a young lady entered and came forward with a smile, exclaiming, "I have come to congratulate you." "Upon what?" inquired the professor. "Upon the passage of your bill," she replied. "Impossible! Its fate was sealed last evening. You must be mistaken." "Not at all," answered the young lady, the daughter of Morse's friend, the Commissioner of Patents, H.L. Ellsworth; "father sent me to tell you that your bill was passed. He remained until the session closed, and yours was the last bill but one acted upon, and it was passed just five minutes before the adjournment. And I am so glad to be able to be the first one to tell you. Mother says you must come home with me to breakfast." Morse, overcome by the intelligence, promised that his young friend, the bearer of these good tidings, should send the first message over the first line of telegraph that was opened. He writes to Alfred Vail that day: "The amount of business before the Senate rendered it more and more doubtful, as the session drew to a close, whether the House bill on the telegraph would be reached, and on the last day, March 3, 1843, I was advised by one of my Senatorial friends to make up my mind for failure, as he deemed it next to impossible that it could be reached before the adjournment. The bill, however, was reached a few minutes before midnight and passed. This was the turning point in the history of the telegraph. My personal funds were reduced to the fraction of a dollar, and, had the passage of the bill failed from any cause, there would have been little prospect of another attempt on my part to introduce to the world my new invention."