“But—­” Anne interposed.

“Oh, I know what you are going to say,—­that Clarence has money.”

“Puss!” cried Anne, outraged.  “How dare you!”

Miss Russell slipped an arm around her waist.

“Come, Anne,” she said, “we mustn’t interrupt the Senator any longer.  He is preparing his maiden speech.”

That was the way in which Stephen got his nickname.  It is scarcely necessary to add that he wrote no more until he reached his little room in the house on Olive Street.

They had passed Alton, and the black cloud that hung in the still autumn air over the city was in sight.  It was dusk when the ‘Jackson’ pushed her nose into the levee, and the song of the negro stevedores rose from below as they pulled the gang-plank on to the landing-stage.  Stephen stood apart on the hurricane deck, gazing at the dark line of sooty warehouses.  How many young men with their way to make have felt the same as he did after some pleasant excursion.  The presence of a tall form beside him shook him from his revery, and he looked up to recognize the benevolent face of Mr. Brinsmade.

“Mrs. Brice may be anxious, Stephen, at the late hour,” said he.  “My carriage is here, and it will give me great pleasure to convey you to your door.”

Dear Mr. Brinsmade!  He is in heaven now, and knows at last the good he wrought upon earth.  Of the many thoughtful charities which Stephen received from him, this one sticks firmest in his remembrance:  A stranger, tired and lonely, and apart from the gay young men and women who stepped from the boat, he had been sought out by this gentleman, to whom had been given the divine gift of forgetting none.

“Oh, Puss,” cried Anne, that evening, for Miss Russell had come to spend the night, “how could you have talked to him so?  He scarcely spoke on the way up in the carriage.  You have offended him.”

“Why should I set him upon a pedestal?” said Puss, with a thread in her mouth; “why should you all set him upon a pedestal?  He is only a Yankee,” said Puss, tossing her head, “and not so very wonderful.”

“I did not say he was wonderful,” replied Anne, with dignity.

“But you girls think him so.  Emily and Eugenie and Maude.  He had better marry Belle Cluyme.  A great man, he may give some decision to that family.  Anne!”

“Yes.”

“Shall I tell you a secret?”

“Yes,” said Anne.  She was human, and she was feminine.

“Then—­Virginia Carvel is in love with him.”

“With Mr. Brice!” cried astonished Anne.  “She hates him!”

“She thinks she hates him,” said Miss Russell, calmly.

Anne looked up at her companion admiringly.  Her two heroines were Puss and Virginia.  Both had the same kind of daring, but in Puss the trait had developed into a somewhat disagreeable outspokenness which made many people dislike her.  Her judgments were usually well founded, and her prophecies had so often come to pass that Anne often believed in them for no other reason.