In all her honest, hard-worked little life Miss Jessup had never done more honest, hard work than she was called upon to do on the day of the inauguration. She had written into the small hours the night before; she had described bunting and arches, evergreens and grand stands, the visiting regiments, club uniforms, bands, banners, torch-lights and speeches, and on the eventful day she was up with the dawn, arranging in the most practicable manner her plans for the day. With letters containing a full and dramatic description of the ceremonies to be written to four western papers, and with extra work upon the Washington weekly and daily, there was no time to be lost. Miss Jessup lost none. Each hour of the day was portioned off—each minute, almost. Now she was to take a glance at the procession from the steps of the Treasury; now she was to spend a few moments in a balcony overlooking another point; she was to see the oath administered, hear the President\'s address and form an estimate of his appreciation of the solemnity of the moment; she was to take his temperature during the afternoon, and be ready to greet him at the ball, and describe dresses, uniforms, decorations, flags, and evergreens again. Even as she took her hasty breakfast she was jotting down appropriate items, and had already begun an article, opening with the sentence, "Rarely has Washington witnessed a more brilliant spectacle," etc.

It could scarcely be said that she missed anything when she went her rounds later. No familiar face escaped her; she recognized people at windows, in[Pg 559] carriages, on platforms. Among others she caught a glimpse of Mrs. Amory, who drove by on her way to the Capitol with her father and Jack and Janey.

"She looks a little tired about the eyes," thought Miss Jessup. "She has looked a little that way all the season, though she keeps going steadily enough. They work as hard as the rest of us, in their way, these society women. She will be at the ball to-night, I dare say."

Bertha herself had wondered if she would find herself there. Even as she drove past Miss Jessup, she was thinking that it seemed almost impossible; but she had thought things impossible often during the winter which had gone by, and had found them come to pass and leave her almost as before. Gradually, however, people had begun to miss something in her. There was no denying, they said, that she had lost some of her vivacity and spirit; some tone had gone from her voice; something of color from her manner. Perhaps she would get over it. Amory had not behaved well in the Westoria land affair, and she naturally felt his absence and the shadow under which he rested.

"Very gradually," she said to the professor once, "I think I am retiring from the world. I never was really very clever or pretty. I don\'t hide it so well as I used to, and people are finding me out. Often I am a little dull, and it is not likely they will forgive me that."

But she was not dull at home, or the professor never thought so. She was not dull now, as she pointed out objects of interest to Jack and Janey.

"I wish Uncle Philip were here!" cried Jack. "He would have his sword on and be in uniform, and he would look taller than all the rest,—taller than the President."

The day was very brilliant to the children; they were as indefatigable as Miss Jessup, and missed as little as if they had been in search of items. The blare of[Pg 560] brazen instruments, the tramp of soldiers, the rattle of arms, the rushing crowds, the noise and color and excitement, filled them with rapture. When they finally reached home they were worn out with their delights. Bertha was not less fatigued; but, after the nursery was quiet and the children were asleep, she came down to dine with the professor.

"And we will go to the ball for an hour," she said. "We cannot submit to having it described to us for the next two weeks by people who were there."

The truth was that she could not sit at home and listen to the carriages rolling by, and watch the dragging hours with such memories as must fill them.

So at half-past ten she stood in her room, putting the last touches to her toilet, and shortly afterward she was driving with the professor toward the scene of the night\'s gayeties. She had seen the same scene on each like occasion since her eighteenth year. There was nothing new about it to-night; there was some change in dances and music, but the same types of people crowded against each other, looking on at the dancing, pointing out the President, asking the old questions, and making the old comments; young people whirled together in the centre of the ballroom, and older ones watched them, with some slight wonder at the interest they evinced in the exercise. Bertha danced only a few quadrilles. As she went through them she felt again what she had felt on each such occasion since the night of the ball of the last year,—the music seemed too loud, the people too vivacious, the gayety about her too tumultuous; though, judged by ordinary standards, there could have been no complaint against it.

But, notwithstanding this feeling, she lingered longer than she had intended, trying to hide from herself her dread of returning home. No one but herself knew—even the professor did not suspect—how empty the house seemed to her, and how its loneliness grew and grew[Pg 561] until sometimes it overpowered her and became a sort of deadly presence. Richard\'s empty rooms were a terror to her; she never passed their closed doors without a shock.

At half-past twelve, however, she decided to go home. She had just ended a dance with a young attaché of one of the legations; he was a brilliantly hued and graceful young butterfly, and dan............