The United States Purchases the Here the matter disappears from the journal and debates of the Twenty-fourth Congress, and any one unused to the ways of the capital would suppose that the project had died with that Congress. This is not the case. Congress did authorize the payment of thirty thousand dollars to Mrs. Madison, and it was done in a way, frequently adopted, which is confusing to historians. The session rushed to its close, and the House, pressed with business, as it always is, took no action on the Senate resolution. Becoming anxious at the delay, the friends of Mrs. Madison in the Senate tacked the item on as a paragraph in the civil and diplomatic appropriation bill; and so we find, in the Act approved March 3,1837, “making appropriation for the civil and diplomatic. expenses of the government," the following paragraph: "For the purchase of the manuscripts of the late Mr. Madison, referred to in a letter from Mrs. Madison to the President of the United States, dated 15th November, 1836, and communicated in his message of 6th December, 1836, thirty thousand dollars." This item in the law, overlooked by some of Mr. Madison's editors, was the one under which the purchase was made, and the manuscript deposited in the State Department, where it now reposes. Speeches Not Meant for Publication As one reads this manuscript and, from the very touch of the paper, feels again the spirit of the writer, he wishes he could have looked in upon some of those dramatic quarrelings. The speeches were not made for publication, or for the influence they might have upon constituents. No doubt the welfare of the country depends on our knowing what is said and done in Congress. Yet, how changed would be the tone of some of the debates, if members made speeches solely for the effect on each other! In the convention which Madison reported, Pinckney, Hamilton, Morris, and Randolph spoke what was in their hearts, and we are fortunate in having a record which glossed nothing. So the truth flashes out of every page. We hear Pierce Butler, of South Carolina, frankly saying: "The security that the Southern States want is, that their negroes may not be taken from them, which some gentlemen within or without doors have a very good mind to do!" And we hear Gouverneur Morris tersely summarizing the most difficult problem ever presented to distracted statesmen: "Upon what principle is it that the slaves shall be computed in the representation? Are they men? Then make them citizens and let them vote! Are they property? Why then is no other property included?" The Fifteenth Amendment was thus agitated in the eighteenth century, before the Constitution was made; and this outburst of Morris is perhaps the first public suggestion that the ballot be given to the colored man. The Importance of the Work The case of James Madison is a luminous illustration of the fact that a man may make success his own by seizing an opportunity. Although he lived to the age of eighty-five, we know him best by what he did when he was thirty-six. Although he was eight years secretary of state, and then president for two terms, his fame will rest principally upon four months' note-taking of some speeches, and certain letters based on those notes. Though he lived fifty years after he did this unostentatious work, it is his masterpiece. He himself was more proud of it than of anything else in his voluminous papers. The esteem in which he held it is shown by the care with which he revised it, thirty-three years after the convention, and by his reference to it in his will. The exceptional circumstances surrounding the making of this report; the impossibility of obtaining the historical material from any other source; the rare intellectual attainments of the author, and his famous career; the personal regard he won from all, and the love the whole nation felt for Dolly Madison, made it natural that a greater compensation should be paid for the manuscript than was ever given before, or probably ever will be paid again, for a like amount and kind of literary work. "Morris and Rutledge conducted Washington to the platform, and all the delegates respectfully stood' BILLY'S ORGY BY GRACE S. RICHMOND AUTHOR OF KILBRETH OF BALLYRAGGAN, ETC. ILLUSTRATED BY HARRY LINNELL ULIUS," said Mrs. Jack, from the library doorway. "M-m?" replied Julius abstractedly, without looking up from the letter he was writing. Spoiled drafts of it lay all about him, and his face was flushed. "Jack and I are going to run into town for the evening. Cook is in the kitchen. I've sent Mary out on an errand, but she will be back in a few minutes. Billy's asleep in the nursery he won't waken. But if you should want to go out just make sure that Mary and cook are both in-will you? I don't like to have Billy alone in the house with only one of the girls.' "M-hm," assented Julius, still without looking up. His sister crossed the room, laid one gloved hand upon the top of his head, placed the other under his chin, and gently forced him to give her his "Do you hear what I say?" she urged. "Yup. I'm not to go out till I know cooky and nursy and cooky's policeman and nursy's postman are in. Shall I have them sit in a circle just outside the nursery door?" she dragged some sort of extra wrap from the hall closet and hurried back to the door. "We shouldn't go if it weren't that the Wetherbys always are so Another slam of the door, a fresh whirlwind around the library desk, and Julius tore his latest effort into bits and threw it after the loose sheets which had danced into the corner. He strolled to the window, pulled aside the heavy curtains, and stood gazing out. "Gee it is something of a night," he commented. "Wonder Bud got up her courage to go into town in such a storm. Guess I don't care much about sallying forth to call on the Meredith girls, after all. Wonder if there's anything new to read here?” He turned about, looked discontentedly over the shelves, opened two or three books and a number of magazines, dumped them Billy "We shall be back on the ten-forty-five," promised Mrs. Jack, hurrying to the door in response to an urgent appeal from the vestibule. A tremendous gust of wind swirled in as the door closed, rushed through the hall and sucked the various drafts of Julius's letter from the desk. He got up impatiently. At the same instant Mrs. Jack ran back into the house. 'It's storming frightfully," she called, as one by one in a rejected pile on the desk, and idled over to the window again. Two dark forms plunging through the snow waved arms of greeting at him, and he hurried to the front door. "Well you fellows must be sick for an airing," he cried, as he admitted an avalanche of snow and a cutting blast of wind at the same time with his chums. "Get into your togs and come along," commanded the guests, shaking and stamping in the hall, and going over to the fireplace to pull off gloves and warm frozen fingers. "Oh, say—not in this blizzard." "Blizzard nothing. It's a nice nightsome of it. What's the good of the holiday vacation if you sit by the fire all through? And the Meredith girls wouldn't take us without you." "Come off. You haven't been there yet.". "That's right," insisted Tom Ward. Sally said, 'Go and get Julius Broughton, or you can't stay.' So there we are. Come hurry up." "You'll have to wait till I set the bread," said Julius, mounting the stairs without haste. The two by the fire shouted. Julius looked grave. "-and give the baby his cough medicine," he continued. "I'm in charge. I'll have to wind the clock and fill the furnace, and see that all the windows are fast, and put on the night-light in the bath-room"Ob, burry up!" and see what the temperature is in the and set the thermostat, and His voice trailed off in the distance, still enumerating particulars. A door slammed somewhere then another. Presently he called over the baluster : "You fellows wearing white waistcoats?" "Yes-HURRY UP!" Julius dressed with greater speed than his manner with his friends would have predicted. He reappeared presently, looking extremely elegant. "You fellows wearing white waistcoats?"" "This is a sweet thing," said Julius to himself, sitting down in his evening clothes before the hall fireplace, an injured expression on his face. "Didn't want to go out at all till I found I couldn't. Now I'd face a "Got the bread set ?" jeered his guests. "Er-no. I'll have to speak to cook about that." He disappeared into the dining-room and was heard making a progress through various unknown regions, calling people who seemed to return no reply. In the course of time he arrived at the hall again. "If we'd known you were a family tornado rather than stay in. What, under the heavens, could have happened to those girls?" man "I am," said Julius solemnly. "I can't find cook nor Mary. My little joke about the bread has become a heart-appalling necessity. I can't go out till they come in." "You can't!" "Billy's asleep in the nursery. Two servants and two steadies are supposed to be in the kitchen. They're not there. Bud and Jack have gone in to town for somethingback on the ten-forty-five. My going out is off till I can round up Billy's guard." The guests departed, murmuring maledictions, and extracting from Julius equivocal promises to put in an appearance at the Merediths if it became possible, no matter at what hour. He took another circuit around the house, shouting vociferously. The only, and immediate, result of this was a lusty wail from the nursery. "Now I've done it," ejaculated the victim in dismay. He cautiously opened the nursery door and peered in. Billy was sitting up in bed, shaking the sides of his crib with both fat hands and rending the air with the vigorous howls of which a fourteen-months' healthy infant is astonishingly capable. The moment he caught sight of Julius he beat his fists upon the rails of his bed and redoubled his energy. a bath-robe. If we've got to make a night of it we may as well dor suitable attire." "Well, leave the roof on" ordered his young uncle, picking him out of his wrappings. "Come here- if you must. Hi don't touch my cravat. Leave my collar alone, you imp. Now what in thunder am I going to do ?" He turned up the light and sat down in his sister's rocking-chair with Billy in his lap, at vague idea of rocking that young person to sleep again animating his action. But Billy would have none of the rocking-chair. Julius showed him the pictures on the walls - a charming assortment of historic scenes from Mother Goose, in the latest and most artistic guise. Billy scorned them and applied himself to worrying Julius's carefully parted hair. "We'll go down-stairs-shall we?" asked Julius politely. Billy crowed. Julius descended the stairs, Billy's pink toes sticking out below his pink flannel nightgown in a most engaging way. His mother would have been distracted with anxiety at the sight. Julius sat down before the big hall fireplace again, and punched up the fire into a roaring picture, at which Billy thrust out his bare feet ecstatically, and wound his fat fingers in Julius's neckgear. "Now, see here," cried that tortured young man, "I won't stand it - see? You sit here on the floor while I go up and get on When he came back deserted kitchen by way of the still of slippers. He was striped robe and a pa. was wearing a gay collarless and cravatiess and he carried a pink-and-white blanke:. obtained from Billy's crib. should come in 1. as he rolled Indian pa "I suppose in case Bu unexpectedly," he murm his nephew in the blanket i poose and stood him up on end, as well to make some slight show of doing " the kid so he won't catch cold." it be The moment he was seated upon the rug Billy squirmed himself free from the blan ket. "All right," said Julius resignedly; "have it that way I don't blame you. Only when you're big enough to get onto our Yale team you will have to take care to pull on your sweater or your bath-robe while you're cooling off." The telephone bell rang. "Hullo," said Julius, in response. "What? -Can't hear you. No-can't make it out. Yes - this is Elliot's. Beg pardon - yes'm. Er-spell it, please. The storm makes bad service. Yes what- oh no, no -I can't get away yet, Sally. Awfully sorry - but my sister hasn't come back and I'm alone. Oh thank you - I'm afraid it will be too late. Er-good-by." Coming back to stand on the hearth-rug and gaze absently down at his nephew, tumbling about gaily there, Julius delivered himself of one pregnant syllable: "Wow!" Billy looked up, caught his uncle's somber eye, and gurgled enticingly. He got no notice. He crowed. There was no response. He crept to the foot of the bath-robe, parted |