“Crutch,” he said one day to the little boy, “did you ever see your father?”

“No, I never saw him, Mr. Reybold, but I’ve had letters from him.”

“Don’t he ever come to see you when you are sick?”

“No.  He wanted to come once when my back was very sick, and I laid in bed weeks and weeks, sir, dreaming, oh! such beautiful things.  I thought mamma and sister and I were all with papa in that old home we are going to some day.  He carried me up and down in his arms, and I felt such rest that I never knew anything like it, when I woke up, and my back began to ache again.  I wouldn’t let mamma send for him, though, because she said he was working for us all to make our fortunes, and get doctors for me, and clothes and school for dear Joyce.  So I sent him my love, and told papa to work, and he and I would bring the family out all right.”

“What did your papa seem like in that dream, my little boy?”

“Oh! sir, his forehead was bright as the sun.  Sometimes I see him now when I am tired at night after running all day through Congress.”

Reybold’s eyes were full of tears as he listened to the boy, and, turning aside, he saw Joyce Basil weeping also.

“My dear girl,” he said to her, looking up significantly, “I fear he will see his great Father very soon.”

Reybold had few acquaintances, and he encouraged the landlady’s daughter to go about with him when she could get a leisure hour or evening.  Sometimes they took a seat at the theatre, more often at the old Ascension Church, and once they attended a President’s reception.  Joyce had the bearing of a well-bred lady, and the purity of thought of a child.  She was noticed as if she had been a new and distinguished arrival in Washington.

“Ah!  Reybold,” said Pontotoc Bibb, “I understand, ole feller, what keeps you so quiet now.  You’ve got a wife unbeknown to the Remittee! and a happy man I know you air.”

It pleased Reybold to hear this, and deepened his interest in the landlady’s family.  His attention to her daughter stirred Mrs. Basil’s pride and revolt together.

“My daughter, Colonel Reybold,” she said, “is designed for the army.  The Judge never writes to me but he says:  ’Tryphonee, be careful that you impress upon my daughter the importance of the military profession.  My mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother married into the army, and no girl of the Basil stock shall descend to civil life while I can keep the Fawquear estates.’”

“Madame,” said the Congressman, “will you permit me to make the suggestion that your daughter is already a woman and needs a father’s care, if she is ever to receive it.  I beseech you to impress this subject upon the Judge.  His estates can not be more precious to his heart, if he is a man of honor; nay, what is better than honor, his duty requires him to come to the side of these children, though he be ever so constrained by business or pleasure to attend to more worldly concerns.”