CHAPTER LVII.

The momentous day was at hand--a day that promised to make or mar the

fortunes of Hawkins family for all time. Washington Hawkins and Col.

Sellers were both up early, for neither of them could sleep. Congress

was expiring, and was passing bill after bill as if they were gasps and

each likely to be its last. The University was on file for its third

reading this day, and to-morrow Washington would be a millionaire and

Sellers no longer, impecunious but this day, also, or at farthest the

next, the jury in Laura's Case would come to a decision of some kind or

other--they would find her guilty, Washington secretly feared, and then

the care and the trouble would all come back again, and these would be

wearing months of besieging judges for new trials; on this day, also, the

re-election of Mr. Dilworthy to the Senate would take place. So

Washington's mind was in a state of turmoil; there were more interests at

stake than it could handle with serenity. He exulted when he thought of

his millions; he was filled with dread when he thought of Laura. But

Sellers was excited and happy. He said:

Everything is going right, everything's going perfectly right. Pretty

soon the telegrams will begin to rattle in, and then you'll see, my boy.

Let the jury do what they please; what difference is it going to make?

To-morrow we can send a million to New York and set the lawyers at work

on the judges; bless your heart they will go before judge after judge and

exhort and beseech and pray and shed tears. They always do; and they

always win, too. And they will win this time. They will get a writ of

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The Gilded Age