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
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.