The gallery to the right of the Speaker is a study for the artist. Every part of this broad land is represented. The Boston girl is there, with a voice that reminds you of the higher notes of Ole Bull’s supernatural violin. The most beautiful women of the continent spring from the land of the setting sun, descendants of the belles of the “blue grass region,” grown and ripened under the cool sun and peculiar atmosphere of Colorado and California. There they sit, mothers and daughters, as luscious to the eye as a basket of their own inimitable pears and transparent grapes. The women of the Sunny South were there. Slender, willowy creations, that remind you of Damascus blades. As full of passion as a fagot of wood with sticks, each one carries an invisible goad to prod the statesman if he even thinks of “compromise.” Stronger than ever are the women entrenched in the rulings of the House. Opposite the Speaker might have been seen Africa--reflected from the seats in all tints, from ebony to “Alderney cream.” Ever since the gallery doors were thrown open to this race the space is occupied. The cushioned seats have been removed, but day after day of the session sees the same row, as though the House were a great school in which the spectators are pupils. Few colored women are to be seen, and the crowd seemed made up of those who have no employment, but who go to Congress to bask in the artificial heat and enjoy the tropical magnificence to be felt on every side. The gavel falls on the Speaker’s table like the blacksmith’s blows on the forge. A muttering silence follows. General Butler has left the Republican side and rolls over to the Democratic. He glances down on the diminutive figure of Aleck Stevens in his rolling chair, pauses a moment as though he were going to speak, apparently changes his mind, passes on, then sinks into a chair with a staunch Democrat on either side. The semi-silence is broken, and the Honorable Charles Foster, of Ohio, is on his feet. His face is very white, but his black eyes burn like the wolf’s in the cave when it was pursued by General Israel Putnam. No man in the House commands more respect than the one who has the floor. “Hear! hear!” In a moment the House was made to understand that Charley, as usual, had a political panacea to apply to the blistered situation; but his plan is hurled back by Atkins, of Tennessee, and then the struggle to fasten the responsibility of an extra session begins.