Major George Calhoun was a member of Congress from one of the southern

states. His forefathers had represented the same commonwealth, and so,

it was likely, would his descendants, if there is virtue in the fitness

of things and the heredity of love. While intrepid frontiersmen were

opening the trails through the fertile wilds west of the Alleghanies, a

strong branch of the Calhoun family followed close in their

footsteps. The major's great-grandfather saw the glories and the

possibilities of the new territory. He struck boldly westward from the

old revolutionary grounds, abandoning the luxuries and traditions of the

Carolinas for a fresh, wild life of promise. His sons and daughters

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became solid stones in the foundation of a commonwealth, and his

grandchildren are still at work on the structure. State and national

legislatures had known the Calhouns from the beginning. Battlefields had

tested their valor, and drawing-rooms had proved their gentility.

Major Calhoun had fought with Stonewall Jackson and won his spurs--and

at the same time the heart and hand of Betty Haswell, the staunchest

Confederate who ever made flags, bandages and prayers for the boys in

gray. When the reconstruction came he went to Congress and later on

became prominent in the United States consular service, for years

holding an important European post. Congress claimed him once more in

the early '90s, and there he is at this very time.

Everybody in Washington's social and diplomatic circles admired the

beautiful Beverly Calhoun. According to his own loving term of

identification, she was the major's "youngest." The fair southerner had

seen two seasons in the nation's capital. Cupid, standing directly in

front of her, had shot his darts ruthlessly and resistlessly into the

passing hosts, and masculine Washington looked humbly to her for the

balm that might soothe its pains. The wily god of love was fair enough

to protect the girl whom he forced to be his unwilling, perhaps

unconscious, ally. He held his impenetrable shield between her heart and

the assaults of a whole army of suitors, high and low, great and

small. It was not idle rumor that said she had declined a coronet or

two, that the millions of more than one American Midas had been offered

to her, and that she had dealt gently but firmly with a score of hearts

which had nothing but love, ambition and poverty to support them in the

conflict.

The Calhouns lived in a handsome home not far from the residence of

Mr. and Mrs. Grenfall Lorry. It seemed but natural that the two

beautiful young women should become constant and loyal friends. Women as

lovely as they have no reason to be jealous. It is only the woman who

does not feel secure of her personal charms that cultivates envy. At the

home of Graustark's princess Beverly met the dukes and barons from the

far east; it was in the warmth of the Calhoun hospitality that Yetive

formed her dearest love for the American people.




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