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I might at least call on the old man, and I accompanied my guide through the still falling snow until we reached a little cottage. The door opened to my guide’s knock, and with the brief and discomposing introduction, “Yer, ole man, I’ve brought you one o’ them snow-bound lecturers,” he left me on the threshold, as my host, a kindly-faced, white-haired man of seventy, came forward to greet me.

His frankness and simple courtesy overcame the embarrassment left by my guide’s introduction, and I followed him passively as he entered the neat, but plainly-furnished sitting-room. At the same moment a pretty, but faded young woman arose from the sofa and was introduced to me as his daughter. “Fanny and I live here quite alone, and if you knew how good it was to see somebody from the great outside world now and then, you would not apologize for what you call your intrusion.”

During this speech I was vaguely trying to recall where and when and under what circumstances I had ever before seen the village, the house, the old man or his daughter. Was it in a dream, or in one of those dim reveries of some previous existence to which the spirit of mankind is subject? I looked at them again. In the careworn lines around the once pretty girlish mouth of the young woman, in the furrowed seams over the forehead of the old man, in the ticking of the old-fashioned clock on the shelf, in the faint whisper of the falling snow outside, I read the legend, “Patience, patience; Wait and Hope.”

The old man filled a pipe, and offering me one, continued, “Although I seldom drink myself, it was my custom to always keep some nourishing liquor in my house for passing guests, but to-night I find myself without any.” I hastened to offer him my flask, which, after a moment’s coyness, he accepted, and presently under its benign influence at least ten years dropped from his shoulders, and he sat up in his chair erect and loquacious.

“And how are affairs at the National Capital, sir?” he began.

Now, if there was any subject of which I was profoundly ignorant, it was this. But the old man was evidently bent on having a good political talk. So I said vaguely, yet with a certain sense of security, that I guessed there wasn’t much being done.

“I see,” said the old man, “in the matters of resumption; of the sovereign rights of States and federal interference, you would imply that a certain conservative tentative policy is to be promulgated until after the electoral committee have given their verdict.” I looked for help towards the lady, and observed feebly that he had very clearly expressed my views.

The old man, observing my look, said: “Although my daughter’s husband holds a federal position in Washington, the pressure of his business is so great that he has little time to give us mere gossip–I beg your pardon, did you speak?”

I had unconsciously uttered an exclamation. This, then, was Remus–the home of Expectant Dobbs–and these his wife and father; and the Washington banquet-table, ah me! had sparkled with the yearning heart’s blood of this poor wife, and had been upheld by this tottering Caryatid of a father.

“Do you know what position he has?”

The old man did not know positively, but thought it was some general supervising position. He had been assured by Mr. Gashwiler that it was a first-class clerkship; yes, a FIRST class.

I did not tell him that in this, as in many other official regulations in Washington, they reckoned backward, but said:–

“I suppose that your M. C., Mr.–Mr. Gashwiler–“

“Don’t mention his name,” said the little woman, rising to her feet hastily; “he never brought Expectant anything but disappointment and sorrow. I hate, I despise the man.”

“Dear Fanny,” expostulated the old man, gently, “this is unchristian and unjust. Mr. Gashwiler is a powerful, a very powerful man! His work is a great one; his time is preoccupied with weightier matters.”