Ratcliffe's admiration for Mrs. Lee, who,
without intending to do so, had acted a more dangerous part than if
she had been the most accomplished of coquettes. Nothing could
be more fascinating to the weary politician in his solitude than the
repose of Mrs. Lee's parlour, and when Sybil sang for him one or
two simple airs--she said they were foreign hymns, the Senator
being, or being considered, orthodox--Mr. Ratcliffe's heart yearned
toward the charming girl quite with the sensations of a father, or
even of an elder brother.
His brother senators very soon began to remark that the Prairie
Giant had acquired a trick of looking up to the ladies' gallery. One
day Mr. Jonathan Andrews, the special correspondent of the New
York Sidereal System, a very friendly organ, approached Senator
Schuyler Clinton with a puzzled look on his face.
"Can you tell me," said he, "what has happened to Silas P.
Ratcliffe? Only a moment ago I was talking with him at his seat on
a very important subject, about which I must send his opinions off
to New York to-night, when, in the middle of a sentence, he
stopped short, got up without looking at me, and left the Senate
Chamber, and now I see him in the gallery talking with a lady
whose face I don't know."
Senator Clinton slowly adjusted his gold eye-glasses and looked up
at the place indicated: "Ah! Mrs. Lightfoot Lee! I think I will say a
word to her myself;" and turning his back on the special
correspondent, he skipped away with youthful agility after the
Senator from Illinois.
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