Leaning back in a chair, no one near her, you see a fair woman, whose beautiful presence seems at variance with the many anxious and angular and the few coarse women around her. The calmness of assured position, the serene satisfaction of conscious beauty, envelop her and float from her like an atmosphere. We feel it even here. Plumes droop above her forehead, velvet draperies fall about her form. We catch a glimpse of laces, the gleam of jewels. Look long into her face; its splendor of tint and perfection of outline can bear the closest scrutiny. Look long, and then say if a soul saintly as well as serene looks out from under those penciled arches, through the dilating irises of those beguiling eyes. Look, and the unveiled gaze which meets yours will tell you, as plainly as a gaze can tell, that adulation is the life of its life, and seduction the secret of its spell. This beauty would not blanch before the profanest sight; it is the beauty of one who tunes her tongue to honeyed accents, and lifts up her eyelids to lead men down to death. She comes and goes in a showy carriage. She glides through the corridors, haunts the galleries and the ante-rooms of the Capitol—everywhere conspicuous in her beauty. All who behold her inquire, Who is that beautiful woman? Nobody seems quite sure. Doubt and mystery envelop her like a cloud. “She is a rich and beautiful widow,” “She is unmarried,” “She is visiting the city with her husband.” Every gazer has a different answer. There are a few, deep in the secrets of diplomacy, of legislative venality, of governmental prostitution, who can tell you she is one of the most subtle and most dangerous of lobbyists. She is but one of a class always beautiful and always successful. She plays for large stakes, but she always wins. The man who says to her, “Secure my appointment, make sure my promotion, and I will pay you so many thousands,” usually gets his appointment, and she her thousands. Does she wait like a suppliant? Not at all. She sits like an empress waiting to give audience. Will she receive her subjects in promiscuous assemblage? No; if you wait long enough you will see her glide over these tessellated floors, but not alone. Far from the ears of the crowd, in rooms sumptuous enough for the Sybarites, this woman will dazzle the sight of a half-demented and wholly bewildered magnate, and then tell him what prize she wants. With alluring eyes and beguiling voice she will besiege his will through the outworks of his senses, and so charm him on to do her bidding. He promises her his influence; he promises her his power; her favorite shall have the boon he demands, whether it be of emolument or power.