inevitable, the war between the states?

Into this outer circle whirled that smaller element which came to the Capital to spend money—not to make it. Diamonds flash, point lace flounces flaunt! Who will stop that mighty whirligig to inspect whether the champagne is real, or the turtle is prime?

Allons! le jeu est fait!

Camp-followers and hangers-on of Congress, many of its members from the West, claim agents from Kansas, husbandless married women from California and subterranean politicians from everywhere herein found elements as congenial as profitable. All stirred into the great olla podrida and helped to "Make the hell broth boil and bubble."

The inner circle was the real society of Washington. Half submerged for half of each year by accumulating streams of strangers, it ever rose the same—fresh and unstained by deposit from the baser flood. Therein, beyond doubt, one found the most cultured coteries, the courtliest polish and the simplest elegance that the drawing-rooms of this continent could boast. The bench and the bar of the highest court lent their loftiest intellects and keenest wits. Careful selections were there from Congress of those who held senates on their lips and kept together the machinery of an expanding nation; and those "rising men," soon to replace, or to struggle with them, across the narrow Potomac near by. To this society, too, the foreign legations furnished a strong element. Bred in courts, familiar with the theories of all the world, these men must prove valuable and agreeable addition to any society into which they are thrown.

It is rather the fashion just now to inveigh against foreigners in society, to lay at their door many of the peccadilloes that have crept into our city life; but the diplomats are, with rare exceptions, men of birth, education and of proved ability in their own homes. Their ethics may be less strict than those which obtain about Plymouth Rock, but experience with them will prove that, however loose their own code, they carefully conform to the custom of others; that if they have any scars across their morals, they have also the tact and good taste to keep them decorously draped from sight.

In the inner circle of Washington were those officers of the army and navy, selected for ability or service—or possibly "by grace of cousinship"—to hold posts near the government; and, with full allowance for favoritism, some of these were men of culture, travel and attainment—most of them were gentlemen. And the nucleus, as well as the amalgam of all these elements, was the resident families of old Washingtonians. These had lived there so long as to be able to winnow the chaff and throw the refuse off.

There has ever been much talk about the corruption of Washington, easy hints about Sodom, with a general sweep at the depravity of its social system. But it is plain these facile fault-finders knew no more of its inner circle—and for its resident society only is any city responsible—than they did of the court of the Grand Turk. Such critics had come to Washington, had made their "dicker," danced at the hotel hops, and been jostled on the Avenue. If they essayed an entrance into the charmed circle, they failed.

Year after year, even the Titans of the lobby assailed the gates of that heaven refused them; and year after year they fell back, baffled and grommelling, into the pit of that outer circle whence they came. Yet every year, especially in the autumn and spring, behind that Chinese wall was a round of entertainments less costly than the crushes of the critic circle, but stamped with quiet elegance aped in vain by the non-elect. And when the whirl whirled out at last, with the departing Congress; when the howling crowd had danced its mad carmagnole and its vulgar echoes had died into distance, then Washington society was itself again. Then the sociality of intercourse—that peculiar charm which made it so unique—became once more free and unrestrained.

Passing from the reek of a hotel ball, or the stewing soiree of a Cabinet secretary into the quiet salon of a West End home, the very atmosphere was different, and comparison came of itself with that old Quartier Saint Germain, which kept undefiled from the pitch that smirched its Paris, through all the hideous dramas of the bonnet rouge.

The influence of political place in this country has long spawned a social degradation. Where the gift is in the hands of a fixed power, its seeking is lowering enough; but when it is besought from the enlightened voter himself, "the scurvy politician" becomes a reality painfully frequent. Soliciting the ballot over a glass of green corn juice in the back room of a country grocery, or flattering the cara sposa of the farmhouse, with squalling brat upon his knee, is scarcely calculated to make the best of men more of "an ornament to society." Constant contact with sharpers and constant effort to be sharper than they is equally as apt to blunt his sense of delicacy as it is to unfit one for higher responsibilities of official station. So it was not unnatural that that society of Washington, based wholly on politics, was not found wholly clean. But under the seething surface—first visible to the casual glance—was a substratum as pure as it was solid and unyielding.

Habitues of twenty years remarked that, with all the giddy whirl of previous winters in the outer circle, none had approached in mad rapidity that of 1860-61. The rush of aimless visiting, matinées and dinners, balls and suppers, followed each other without cessation; dress and diamonds, equipage and cards, all cost more than ever before. This might be the last of it, said an uneasy sense of the coming storm; and in the precedent sultriness, the thousands who had come to make money vied with the tens who came to spend it in mad distribution of the proceeds. Madame, who had made an immense investment of somebody's capital in diamonds and lace, must let the world see them. Mademoiselle must make a certain exhibit of shapely shoulders and of telling stride in the German; and time was shortening fast. And Knower, of the Third House, had put all the proceeds of engineering that last bill through, into gorgeous plate. It would never do to waste it, for Knower meant business; and this might be the end of the thing.

So the stream rushed on, catching the weak and timid ones upon its brink and plunging them into the whirling vortex. And still the rusty old wheels revolved, as creakily as ever, at the Capital. Blobb, of Oregon, made machine speeches to the sleepy House, but neither he, nor they, noted the darkening atmosphere without. Senator Jenks took his half-hourly "nip" with laudable punctuality, thereafter rising eloquent to call Mr. President's attention to that little bill; and all the while that huge engine, the lobby, steadily pumped away in the political basement, sending streams of hot corruption into every artery of the government.

Suddenly a sullen reverberation echoes over the Potomac from the South. The long-threatened deed is done at last. South Carolina has seceded, and the first link is rudely stricken from the chain.

There is a little start; that is all. The Third House stays for a second its gold spoon; and, perhaps, a trifle of the turtle spills before reaching its mouth. Madame rearranges her parure and smoothes her ruffled lace; while Mademoiselle pouts a little, then studies her card for the next waltzer. Senator Jenks takes his "nip" just a trifle more regularly; and Blobb, of Oregon, draws a longer breath before his next period. As for the lobby-pump, its piston grows red-hot and its valves fly wide open, with the work it does; while thicker and more foul are the streams it sends abroad.

For awhile there is some little talk around Willard's about the "secesh;" and the old soldiers wear grave faces as they pass to and fro between the War Department and General Scott's headquarters. But to the outer circle, it is only a nine-day wonder; while the dancing and dining