"He is from one of those dreadful North-western States and bound to be corrupt," cried Emory, triumphantly. He wished desperately that he had waited and got up his case. He spoke from sincere conviction. "There may be a rag of decency left in the older States, but the West is positively fetid. I give you my word I am speaking the truth, Betty dear, and in your own interest. If I have no more details to give you, it is because I promised my father on his death-bed that I would have nothing to do with politics, and I have kept my word to the extent of reading as little about them as possible. But I can assure you that I know as much about them as anybody not in the accursed business. It is in the air--" "There are so many things in the air that they get mixed up. Your whole argument is based on air. Now, _mon ami_, you turn to to-morrow and study up the record of every man in that Senate, as well as the legislative methods of his State. When you know all about it, I shall be delighted to be instructed. But I don't want any more air. Now come in to dinner, and if you allude to the subject before Molly, I'll leave the table." He bowed over her hand again with his old-fashioned courtesy. "When you issue a command I am bound to obey," he said, "and although you have set me an unpleasant, an obnoxious task, I certainly shall accomplish that also to the best of my ability. You belong to this old house, Betty, to this old set; I love to think of you as the last rose on the old Southern tree, and you shall not be blighted if I can help it." Betty tapped him lightly with her fan. "I belong to the whole country, my dear boy; I am no old cabbage rose on a half-dead bush, but the same vegetable under a new name,--the American Beauty Rose. Do you see the parable? And I've a great many thorns on my long stem. Remember that also." V