I have so often stated, and pronounce again, if it will in any measure clear the atmosphere, that neither on the first ballot nor on any subsequent one may you expect me to vote for the nominee of your caucus if permitted to retain my seat in this assembly. If, because of that decision, I am marked for punishment at your hands, then, with a free conscience and no misgivings I await your pleasure." An almost painful silence filled the chamber as Glen sat down. His hearers were too profoundly moved for present outburst of applause or temper. Presently one member, more conscious of the presence of the master mind behind the scenes than others, moved the previous question. Then the storm broke out anew, and while members of the opposition clamored for opportunity to speak upon the motion and the gallery shook with the tumult of contending voices, the Speaker, rising, put the original motion in a voice unheard by all save the recording clerk and announced it carried. What might have occurred, when the fact went home to the understanding of the opposition and of the gallery crowd, that the crowning act of grave injustice had been put through by form of legal process, it would be difficult to hazard, but just as the Speaker's gavel fell, Glen, who was watching it, slowly rose, his pale face set, and gathered the few papers on his desk together. His slow, methodical, unimpassioned bearing, and tall young form as it rose above the heads of his friends about him, seemed to catch and hold the absorbed attention of the gathering, and as he turned and moved down the aisle the tumult ceased, and an almost complete silence lent its weight to the closing scene of this impressive drama. Men bowed and smiled to him, and women in the gallery waved their dainty handkerchiefs, but he seemed not to note the interest centered on him until he had reached the rear of the dense-thronged chamber. Then he looked up at the animate scene above him, and, realizing that all this was meant for him, he smiled and bowed slightly in recognition. But then, of a sudden, as he again moved on, his great, young form erect and graceful, his face changed, and a glow of red mantled to his temples. For, amid the hundred faces bent down upon him from above, his quick vision had picked out one-but one, the fair, suffused face of Constance Carter. He passed out of the high-arched door, and as he disappeared the tense strain behind him broke and such a storm of appreciation for him rolled from gallery to floor and floor to dome as shook the vast chamber to its foundations. With a few friends he escaped the throng of wrought-up people who surged down the stairways, and by a side entrance gained the street and hurried to his apartment in the oldtime hostelry. There he was joined by others who had stood by him in the crisis, and later in the afternoon the Major came, towering like an angry thunder cloud, and, while Glen rested, insisted on hearing every scrap of what had been said during the afternoon repeated by those who had been present. It suffices for our story to relate, that that evening, in the Major's chamber, there was formed an organization known as the Constitution Party Club, with the Major as its first president and Glen as its secretary and treasurer, which was to have a potent bearing on future politics. That information, and the kindred statement, that, as this factor in local civic life was being born, the Legislature met in grand committee and carried out the bargain of its Master, by electing the Honorable Theopilus I. Burland to the high office which he had contracted for, must close the portal leading further on down the labyrinthic way of practical politics, into which our little romance for a brief time inadvertently w dered. When Glen Noble arrived home at Stonestead station, he came little like a discredited hero. A delegation of personal and political friends was there to greet him, headed by good Doctor Gey, who beamed his delight on the brown-haired, broadshouldered young man whom he had helped into the world and whom he had solicitously watched through all his vicissitudes and triumphs up to the present hour. He made a characteristic little speech of welcome, in the name of his fellowtownsmen, to which Glen was obliged to briefly reply, and then the hearty, good-natured crowd surrounding the little, rambling railroad station cheered itself hoarse, and with crude but honest allegiance to "their acclaim vowed allegiance to "their candidate," pledging him that if the courts did not reinstate him in his seat they would elect him two years hence to a higher office by such an overwhelming majority that no returning board would dare to count him out. Of course, such spontaneous, sincere outpouring of loyalty and sympathy was pleasing to Glen. Even an older face than his might have been excused the blush of pleasure that mantled his handsome, manly young features and the moisture of gratitude that for a moment dimmed his deep brown eyes. He went with his friends to the village hostelry, where dinner was prepared, and after a little impromptu speechmaking over coffee and cigars later, he held an informal, old-friend reception in the hotel parlor. But when it was all over, and the last formal word in heart-felt greeting had been said, Glen firmly declined the offer of friends to see him home, and started out afoot, as in days gone by, by highway and across lots for the farm. Not that he did not appreciate fully the sincere testaments of good will and honor shown him, for his heart was swollen with appreciation and thanks. But while his whole being responded gratefully to such friendliness, his thoughts were with another, and she an absent one. How true it is, as someone, somewhere, has so well said, that a sliver 239 in one's little finger is of more concern as ap a To Glen, this mild, sunshiny winter's day, plodding along over the halfbared fields toward his welcoming ment that the public prints far outhome, it mattered little for the moside the State's domains were a hero and plauding him as His mind was not at all concerned with martyr in humanity's loftiest cause. the prominence he had attained nor with canvassing the future which was The applause and turmoil was left destined to bring him further honors. behind, forgotten, and with head bent and hand thrust in his coat pockets he plodded on, unfeeling the buoyant conscious of the golden sunlight on pulse of the glorious upland air, unthe dappled landscape, the glint of bird wings, or the perfumed scent of the moist turf, that ordinarily he ant breaths. He heard nothing and would have inhaled with deep, luxurisaw only the fair face of the girl he loved, bent to him from the crowded gallery with its smile. The following morning early, after the sausages and fried pudding with Glen backed into his great coat, which maple syrup had been disposed of, one of the men held for him, and after giving some directions as to the work He arrived at Major Terrill's office of the day, he drove off toward Ludlow. down into his chair to read the mornjust after the old lawyer had settled ing paper. "Well, well," exclaimed the Major, sticking out a welcoming hand to be shaken as Glen stamped in. "What's Glen said he had some business in the early bird out for this morning?" town to attend to, and thought he would drop in in passing. "Glad you did, glad you did," rejoined the Major, carefully poising his that he held up to receive them. glasses on the assertive ridge of nose "Indeed, I wanted to see you specially count matter. Wait till I see what's about that brief I'm to file in the rein the paper and we'll talk it over." Glen threw his overcoat across the table and busied himself with a file of Boston papers until the Major laid down the newspaper. "Oh, by the way, Major, have you a pretty good telephone service here?" Glen asked, nodding toward a telephone on the nearby wall. "Tolerable, tolerable," said the Major, glaring over the rubber rims of his glasses at the instrument, as though that was the first time he had noticed such an innovation in his office. "But as to that brief, Glen," he continued, withdrawing his gaze from the telephone after scrutinizing it and finding it uninteresting. "Copper circuit?" asked Glen. "Ha?" said the Major, jerkily removing his glasses and looking keenly at his visitor, who still stood contemplating the instrument. "Have a copper, out-of-town wire?" Glen supplemented, still viewing the telephone critically. "I've heard they're the best." "I'd know," said the Major, after a pause. "I know they charge like robbery for it. It ought to be something extra fine for the money. But as I was saying ' "Fairly private service?" Glen interrupted, still interrogatively. The Major snorted. "You thinking of going into the telephone business?" he asked, sarcastically. "If you're going down to get your mail, Major, I'll wait for you," said Glen, slowly. "While you're gone I may like to use your telephone, if you've no objection." The old lawyer watched his visitor as Glen stepped to the telephone and interestedly viewed the instrument in all its details. The expression on the old lawyer's countenance indicated a perplexed doubt whether his young friend was slightly demented or if he himself was wavering mentally. "I" He was going to explode with a strong exclamation to the effect that he had no intention of going to the post-office for an hour yet. But then he paused and looked keenly at the square-cut shoulders of the young man, who, by now, was deeply ab sorbed in the uninteresting titles of the calf-bound volumes which were marshaled in even array on the shelves. The kindly old practitioner was far from being dense. "I guess I will go down to the office," he said. "May be something there from the court that I may want to see about." He pulled on the old fur cap with its floppy ear-laps that had been lying, top down, on the table with a pair of dark-stained buckskin gloves thrown into its frayed, silk interior. In back, the fur of that familiar old cap was all worn off to the shiny hide, from contact with up-turned coat collar, and when the Major put it on he tugged it down so on the back of his head that only a little frings of iron-grey hair showed below it. Glen listened to the slow, heavy thump of the old man's rubber-shod feet on the stairs, until the outer door banged shut, a quizzical smile on his face, half self-accusing for playing such a shabby trick on his old friend. Then he quickly took the telephone book from its hook and ran a finger down the printed pages until he came to the "W's." Then he rang up central. "I want seven, eleven, two-the Seminary in Westborough," he said, when "central" answered. "This is number eight forty-seven, Ludlow. I want to talk with Miss Constance Carter. You'll call me? All right!" He hung up the receiver and went and gazed out the window, an odd, anxious expression on his face. he When the telephone jingled crossed the wide room in three strides. "Hullo? Hullo?" a gentle inquiring voice was saying in his ear: a voice now rounded and softened to full maturity, but which he recognized instantly, and oh, so well. "Hullo!" he rejoined into the mouthpiece. "Hullo, Constance! Is it you?" "Why, Glen. Is that you?" asked the voice in pleased surprise, and after the idiomatic manner of repetition and query peculiar to conversation over the phone. "Yes," Glen answered. "I'm down at Ludlow. I'm in the Major's office." "Why, Glen. I'd like so much to see somebody from home, but, you know, it's against the rules for us to receive gentlemen company here. Would you come with the Doctor and Aunt Clara?" "No," exclaimed Glen, and little as the word is it made the instrument rattle. "I'm coming alone." A musical little laugh rang over the wire. "Oh, my, Glen! That would That would never do." "Well, rules or no rules, I'm coming, unless-" "Well-1-1." Long drawn out. "You know, Sir, I never was good at resisting a dare." "Dish this phone! I can't say half what I mean standing here to a hole in the wall." "Do what to it, did you say, Sir?" "Dish it." "Oh!" "Say," from Glen. "What?" "Say, Kit!" "Yes?" "Say! When you coming home?" "Easter, Glen." "Easter? When's Easter?" "Why, Glen! Easter's the sixteenth." "Sixteenth? Say!" "Yes?" "Say, Kit! If I won't come over and bother you, will you promise me toto Oh, confound this way of talking, anyway! Constance!" "Yes, Glen." "Are you there?" "Yes." A little smothered laugh. "Say! If I don't come over, will you promise me all of Easter evening to ourselves? I-I want to see you about something." A long pause. "Hullo!" "Yes, Glen-that is," hurriedly, “I mean I'm listening." "But do you promise?" "Why, Glen." A pause. "You see, the Robbins girls and I were going-" "Well, don't. Tell 'em you can'tthat you've got another engagement. Tell 'em anything. Only promise." "Why, Glen-I-I-O, Glen!" "Yes?" Anxiously. "Miss Taft, the matron, is coming. I'll have to say good-by." Commotion at Glen's end of the line. "Constance!" earnestly. "Please promise," oh, so pleadingly. "Is it so important, Glen? Will it please you?" "So very much." "Well." A noise of some one trying to get further into the receiver at Glen's end. "Well if it really makes any difference-Yes, I promise?" "Thank you so much, little one," and Glen settled back onto his heels. "I'll explain everyhing when you're home. Good-by, if I must." "Good-by, Glen. Remember me to all the folks and to the Major." "Until Easter." "Until Easter." "Good-by." Glen heard the receiver being hung up slowly, and as he turned away, a bright light in his own brown eyes, he heard, on the outer stairs, the slow skuff of the Major's feet as the old lawyer slowly ascended. When he came in Glen was deeply absorbed in a bulky, black volume which had been nearest to his hand at the moment of the opening of the door. The Major tugged off his cap and tossed it on the table, and drew off his gloves slowly, eyeing Glen narrowly. "That government report on interstate commerce you've got there, young man, ain't very recent," he said, slowly, and Glen's eyelids fluttered. "If you want something real interesting, I just got the department's latest treatise on Constitutional Limitation, that ought to make nice reading. Glen looked up laughing, but the Major was already seated, adjusting his glasses astride his nose and pawing over the papers on his desk, while he hummed a bar or two of an old love song. Finally, after he had read through several legal-looking forms and signed a letter or two, he pushed back his swiveled chair and put one pudgy knee up against the edge of the desk, removing his glasses and closing and squinting his eyes as he did so. "About the brief," he said, as though he had not from the first been interrupted in the subject, and Glen closed the dry-as-dust government report and took a seat by his friend, who had been the boyhood friend of his father. For some time they discussed their affairs, politics, farming, etcetera. Finally Glen got up to go, promising to be in town again the following week, on request of the Major. Lunging into his great coat and pulling on a pair of fur gloves, he said, "good-by." He was just closing the door when the Major said: "Oh, a-Glen! If there's anything about that old telephone that you don't like, I'll have it remedied." A Glen paused on the threshold. broad back was all he could see of the Major, but there was a suspicious agitation of the stooped shoulders. He was about to make answer, when the Major interrupted him. "That's all right, Farmer," he said, his face buried in a law book. "Come in any time. Post-office hours from ten to ten-thirty." Glen closed the door with a bang, and passing by the window that opened from the office onto the dusky hallway he rapped on the grimy window-pane, then clattered down the stairs and passed out into the winter's sunshine. CHAPTER XXX. Candlemas day that year dawned leaden, with banks of clouds curtaining the eastern skies ard all the forenoon a hushed expectancy brooded over the up-country. But at noon the sun broke through and flooded the white world with radiant splendor. Then again the mist-veils were drawn. and the afternoon passed into history a gray, shadowless phantom. Whereby it came to pass that prophets that season were disconcerted. Whether the ground hog had or had not seen his shadow was a mooted question one of the village tavern debating club spent several sessions over, but which was finally left undecided. But the antis finally had the weight of evidence on their side, for the spring that year was early. March, the mad month of strange, erratic tendencies, both came and went the lamb; the lion only roaring once, |