“Well, at last, what do you think happened?  Why the people gave him a towering, illustrious position, a grand, imposing position.  And what do you think it was?  What should you say it was, children?  It was Senator of the United States!  That poor little boy that loved his Sunday School became that man.  That man stands before you!  All that he is, he owes to the Sunday School.

“My precious children, love your parents, love your teachers, love your Sunday School, be pious, be obedient, be honest, be diligent, and then you will succeed in life and be honored of all men.  Above all things, my children, be honest.  Above all things be pure-minded as the snow.  Let us join in prayer.”

When Senator Dilworthy departed from Cattleville, he left three dozen boys behind him arranging a campaign of life whose objective point was the United States Senate.

When be arrived at the State capital at midnight Mr. Noble came and held a three-hours’ conference with him, and then as he was about leaving said: 

“I’ve worked hard, and I’ve got them at last.  Six of them haven’t got quite back-bone enough to slew around and come right out for you on the first ballot to-morrow; but they’re going to vote against you on the first for the sake of appearances, and then come out for you all in a body on the second—­I’ve fixed all that!  By supper time to-morrow you’ll be re-elected.  You can go to bed and sleep easy on that.”

After Mr. Noble was gone, the Senator said: 

“Well, to bring about a complexion of things like this was worth coming West for.”

CHAPTER LIV.

The case of the State of New York against Laura Hawkins was finally set down for trial on the 15th day of February, less than a year after the shooting of George Selby.

If the public had almost forgotten the existence of Laura and her crime, they were reminded of all the details of the murder by the newspapers, which for some days had been announcing the approaching trial.  But they had not forgotten.  The sex, the age, the beauty of the prisoner; her high social position in Washington, the unparalleled calmness with which the crime was committed had all conspired to fix the event in the public mind, although nearly three hundred and sixty-five subsequent murders had occurred to vary the monotony of metropolitan life.

No, the public read from time to time of the lovely prisoner, languishing in the city prison, the tortured victim of the law’s delay; and as the months went by it was natural that the horror of her crime should become a little indistinct in memory, while the heroine of it should be invested with a sort of sentimental interest.  Perhaps her counsel had calculated on this.  Perhaps it was by their advice that Laura had interested herself in the unfortunate criminals who shared her prison confinement, and had done not a little to relieve, from her own purse, the necessities of some of the poor creatures.  That she had done this, the public read in the journals of the day, and the simple announcement cast a softening light upon her character.