Close upon the election and these eulogistic biographies came the inauguration, with Lyons's eloquent address. Selma, of course, had special privileges--a reserved gallery in the State House, to which she issued cards of admission to friends of her own selection. Occupying in festal attire the centre of this conspicuous group, she felt that she was the cynosure of every eye. She perceived that she was constantly pointed out as the second personage of the occasion. To the few legislators on the floor whom she already knew she took pains to bow from her seat with gracious cordiality, intending from the outset to aid her husband by captivating his friends and conciliating the leaders of the opposition party. On her way to and from the gallery she was joined by several members, to each of whom she tried to convey subtly the impression that she purposed to take an earnest interest in legislative affairs, and that her husband would be apt to consult her in regard to close questions. On the morning after the inauguration she had the satisfaction of seeing her own portrait side by side with that of her husband on the front page of two newspapers, a flattering indication, as she believed, that the press already recognized her value both as a helpmate to him and an ornament to the State. She took up her life as the Governor's lady feeling that her talents and eagerness to do good had finally prevailed and that true happiness at last was in store for her. She was satisfied with her husband and recognized his righteous purpose and capacity as a statesman, but she believed secretly that his rapid success was due in a large measure to her genius. Her prompting had inspired him to make a notable speech in his first Congress. Her charms and clever conversation had magnetized Mr. Elton so that he had seen fit to nominate him for Governor. A fresh impulse to her self-congratulation that virtue and ability were reaping their reward was given a few weeks later by the announcement which Lyons read from the morning newspaper that the firm of Williams & Van Horne had failed disastrously. The circumstances attending their down-fall were sensational. It appeared that Van Horne, the office partner, who managed the finances, had shot himself as the culmination of a series of fraudulent hypothecations of securities and misrepresentations to which it was claimed that Williams was not a party. The firm had been hopelessly insolvent for months, and had been forced to the wall at last by a futile effort on the part of Van Horne to redeem the situation by a final speculation on a large scale. It had failed owing to the continuation of the state of dry rot in the stock market, and utter ruin followed.