now up the stairs.

"Oh," said he, "I believe I'm going to cry. It hasn't changed--any more
than you have. You darling!"

Miss Amabel put her hand on his shoulder, and he drew it to his lips;
and then she slipped it through his arm and they went into the east room
together, which also had not changed, and Jeff took his accustomed place
on the sofa under the portrait of the old judge, Miss Amabel's
grandfather. Jeff shook off sentiment, the softness he could not afford.

"I tell you I won't have it," he said. "Weedon Moore isn't going to be
mayor of this town. Besides he can't. He hasn't been in politics--"

"More or less," said she.

"Run for office?"

"Yes."

"Ever get any?"

"No."

"There! what d'I tell you?"

"But he has a following of his own now," said she, in a quiet triumph,
he thought. "Since he has done so much for labour."

"What's he done?"

"He has organised--"

"Strikes?"

"Yes. He's been all over the state, working."

"And talking?"

"Why, yes, Jeff! Don't be unjust. He has to talk."

"Amabel," said Jeffrey, with a sudden seriousness that drew her renewed
attention, "have you the slightest idea what kind of things Moore is
pouring into the ears of these poor devils that listen to him?"

She hesitated.

"Have you, now?" he insisted.

"Well, no, Jeffrey. I haven't heard him. There's rather a strong
prejudice here against labour meetings. So Weedon very wisely talks to
the men when he can get them alone."

"Why wisely? Why do you say that?"

"Because we want to spread knowledge without rousing prejudice. Then
there isn't so much to fight."

"What kind of knowledge is Weedon Moore spreading? Tell me that."

Her plain face glowed with the beauty of her aspiration.

"He is spreading the good tidings," she said softly, "good tidings of
great joy."

"Don't get on horseback, dear," he said, inexorably, but fondly. "I'm a
plain chap, you know. I have to have plain talk. What are the tidings?"

She looked at him in a touched solemnity.

"Don't you know, Jeff," she said, "the working-man has been going on in
misery all these centuries because he hasn't known his own power? It's
like a man's dying of thirst and not guessing the water is just inside
the rock and the rock is ready to break. He's only to look and there are
the lines of cleavage." She sought in the soft silk bag that was ever at
her hand, took out paper and pen and jotted down a line.

"What are you writing there?" J