The dejected looking woman on the sofa opposite is a widow, with numerous small children. You may be certain by the unhopeful expression of her face that it is her own claim which, almost unaided and alone, she is trying to “work through” Congress. Her home is far distant. She borrowed money to come here, she borrows money to support her children, money to pay her own board; borrows money to pay the exorbitant fees of the claim-agent, who, constantly fanning the flame of “great expectations,” assures her every day that Congress will pay her the thousands which she demands for her losses—will pay her this very session. Meantime the session is almost ended, and the widow’s claim, on which hangs such a heavy load of debt and fear, lies hidden and forgotten in the pigeon-hole of the Committee of Claims. While it lies there, gathering dust, she a cheaply clad, care-faced woman, no longer young, and never pretty, has grown to be most burdensome to Senator ——, especially to the chairman of that committee. Irksome, not to be desired, is the importunate presence of this forlorn woman. No less irksome to these functionaries is the sight of her hundred sisters in distress—more or less; poor widows, with small children, with personal claims upon the Government. The chairman dreads the sight of this woman and of her like. He dreads it the more that he is perfectly certain that her case is not reached, and will not be this session. A kind-hearted man, he is unwilling to set the seal of despair on her face by telling her the truth. She finds it out at last, and then remembering all his evasions, in her disappointment and hopeless poverty, she denounces him as “deceitful and heartless,” whereas the honorable gentleman was only trying to be kind. Meanwhile the Senate is too much interested in immense claims involving millions, to be paid out of the National Treasury, too much absorbed in the discussion of the universal, to be able to come down to the small particular of a poor widow, with hungry children, whose only heritage was lost in the war. In time, whose cycles may be as long as those of the Circumlocution Office and the Court of Chancery—but _some_ time, when the widow has borrowed and spent more money than the whole claim is worth, it may be investigated, and full or partial justice done. In either case, it will take more than she receives to pay the many expenses which she has incurred during her long years of waiting. Do you wonder that her face looks doleful while she waits for Senator —— to come in to answer her card, sent into the Senate Chamber. Here he is and we can hear what he says, “I am very sorry, Madame; but it has grown to be too late. I fear that your case can not be reached this session.” Poor woman. It would have been better for you to have staid at home, kept out of debt, worked with your hands to have supported your children. That would have been a hard life, but not so