Laura was on excellent terms with a great many members of Congress, and there was an undercurrent of suspicion in some quarters that she was one of that detested class known as “lobbyists;” but what belle could escape slander in such a city?  Fairminded people declined to condemn her on mere suspicion, and so the injurious talk made no very damaging headway.  She was very gay, now, and very celebrated, and she might well expect to be assailed by many kinds of gossip.  She was growing used to celebrity, and could already sit calm and seemingly unconscious, under the fire of fifty lorgnettes in a theatre, or even overhear the low voice “That’s she!” as she passed along the street without betraying annoyance.

The whole air was full of a vague vast scheme which was to eventuate in filling Laura’s pockets with millions of money; some had one idea of the scheme, and some another, but nobody had any exact knowledge upon the subject.  All that any one felt sure about, was that Laura’s landed estates were princely in value and extent, and that the government was anxious to get hold of them for public purposes, and that Laura was willing to make the sale but not at all anxious about the matter and not at all in a hurry.  It was whispered that Senator Dilworthy was a stumbling block in the way of an immediate sale, because he was resolved that the government should not have the lands except with the understanding that they should be devoted to the uplifting of the negro race; Laura did not care what they were devoted to, it was said, (a world of very different gossip to the contrary notwithstanding,) but there were several other heirs and they would be guided entirely by the Senator’s wishes; and finally, many people averred that while it would be easy to sell the lands to the government for the benefit of the negro, by resorting to the usual methods of influencing votes, Senator Dilworthy was unwilling to have so noble a charity sullied by any taint of corruption—­he was resolved that not a vote should be bought.  Nobody could get anything definite from Laura about these matters, and so gossip had to feed itself chiefly upon guesses.  But the effect of it all was, that Laura was considered to be very wealthy and likely to be vastly more so in a little while.  Consequently she was much courted and as much envied:  Her wealth attracted many suitors.  Perhaps they came to worship her riches, but they remained to worship her.  Some of the noblest men of the time succumbed to her fascinations.  She frowned upon no lover when he made his first advances, but by and by when she was hopelessly enthralled, he learned from her own lips that she had formed a resolution never to marry.  Then he would go away hating and cursing the whole sex, and she would calmly add his scalp to her string, while she mused upon the bitter day that Col.  Selby trampled her love and her pride in the dust.  In time it came to be said that her way was paved with broken hearts.