It was not necessary that year for him to defend his own record. He could submerge his political individuality into that of the responsible administration and make his speeches, like all the other speeches delivered that fall, or any fall, by men striving to retain seats in Congress, mere efforts to explain why Congress had not done what the platform of two years before promised it would do. As a congressman, too, he could enjoy the importance of giving his time to the state committee, and of delivering speeches in other districts in Illinois, and once he even went beyond the borders of his own state, and journeyed over into Ohio, where he spoke in the Dayton District for his friend Whiteside, who sat beside him in the House. This experience he relished more than all the others, for the Dayton people, not sure of his exact position among public men, determined to make no mistake, and so accorded him all the honors a prophet may expect away from his own country. On election night he found that he had been reëlected, though the returns from Moultrie County showed a falling off in his majority, as did those from his own county. But then, as Rankin said in congratulating Emily, after they had sat up until midnight in Harkness's parlors receiving the returns: "A reduced majority draws the salary just as well as any." XIX Garwood led the way through the smoke and clangor of the B. & O. station, followed by his little family, Emily hurrying anxiously along, holding her skirts in one hand, her bag and umbrella in the other, and the nurse bearing the sleeping John Ethan in the rear. A fog was rolling up from the Potomac and settling thick over the city. The air, heavy as it was, was grateful to Emily, after her long night's nausea from the sickening curves, and she was glad that it was moist, for the dampness bathed her face and cooled her brow. Like all comers to Washington, she had no sooner set her foot to the pavement than she lifted her eyes to behold the Capitol, which symbols the might and majesty of the Republic to the stranger, who, when he once beholds it, ceases to be a stranger, and feels at home, for this city belongs to the nation and each citizen in it has an immediate revelation of his citizenship and of his common ownership in the things that make it interesting and great. Emily remembered the Capitol as she had seen it first, on the most memorable morning of their wedding trip, lifting its dome into the blue of an autumn sky, and in the gladness of those nuptial days, she had pleased her own fancy and delighted Jerome by fashioning an analogy between its coved apex and the life they were destined to lead under its shadow--rounded, symmetrical and complete.