“Thank you,” replied Laura.  “But I prefer the quiet of home, and the love of those I know;” and her face wore a look of sweet contentment and unworldliness that finished Mr. Harry Brierly for the day.

Nevertheless, the hint that Harry had dropped fell upon good ground, and bore fruit an hundred fold; it worked in her mind until she had built up a plan on it, and almost a career for herself.  Why not, she said, why shouldn’t I do as other women have done?  She took the first opportunity to see Col.  Sellers, and to sound him about the Washington visit.  How was he getting on with his navigation scheme, would it be likely to take him from home to Jefferson City; or to Washington, perhaps?

“Well, maybe.  If the people of Napoleon want me to go to Washington, and look after that matter, I might tear myself from my home.  It’s been suggested to me, but—­not a word of it to Mrs. Sellers and the children.  Maybe they wouldn’t like to think of their father in Washington.  But Dilworthy, Senator Dilworthy, says to me, ’Colonel, you are the man, you could influence more votes than any one else on such a measure, an old settler, a man of the people, you know the wants of Missouri; you’ve a respect for religion too, says he, and know how the cause of the gospel goes with improvements:  Which is true enough, Miss Laura, and hasn’t been enough thought of in connection with Napoleon.  He’s an able man, Dilworthy, and a good man.  A man has got to be good to succeed as he has.  He’s only been in Congress a few years, and he must be worth a million.  First thing in the morning when he stayed with me he asked about family prayers, whether we had ’em before or after breakfast.  I hated to disappoint the Senator, but I had to out with it, tell him we didn’t have ’em, not steady.  He said he understood, business interruptions and all that, some men were well enough without, but as for him he never neglected the ordinances of religion.  He doubted if the Columbus River appropriation would succeed if we did not invoke the Divine Blessing on it.”

Perhaps it is unnecessary to say to the reader that Senator Dilworthy had not stayed with Col.  Sellers while he was in Hawkeye; this visit to his house being only one of the Colonel’s hallucinations—­one of those instant creations of his fertile fancy, which were always flashing into his brain and out of his mouth in the course of any conversation and without interrupting the flow of it.

During the summer Philip rode across the country and made a short visit in Hawkeye, giving Harry an opportunity to show him the progress that he and the Colonel had made in their operation at Stone’s Landing, to introduce him also to Laura, and to borrow a little money when he departed.  Harry bragged about his conquest, as was his habit, and took Philip round to see his western prize.