e attitude that of the
unsophisticated. He listened to the speeches made around him, but had no
ideas to express. He was a pathetic figure. Only the accidents of
Grasshopper Year, when legislative timber was scarce, could have placed
him in such a position. His tough, shaven cheeks grew thinner day by day
as he pulled at the brush of grizzled chin-whiskers and tried to
understand what went on before him.

During those days Susan was both his refuge and the cross of his
crucifixion. The deeper his difficulties became the more he turned to her
for help, certain not only that she understood better than he the measures
about which his colleagues argued, but that she understood him and his
failures, as well as his needs. It was because Susan understood that the
cross was so heavy. If his wife had been a dull woman, if she had been a
woman without ambitions of her own, if she could have been hoaxed into
thinking him the equal of his associates, it would have been easier; but
Nathan was aware that Susan Hornby knew to the finest detail the nature of
his failure as well as she understood and loved the best in him. During
those gloomy days the man marvelled at the gentleness of her solicitations
for his cheering and encouragement, not realizing that woman is by nature
faithful where man is appreciative of her devotion. Appreciation! that had
been the keynote of Nathan Hornby's attitude toward his wife. Susan had
always known what she ought to do, what she wanted to do, and what it was
best for her to do, and in all matters where her individual affairs were
concerned Nathan had never interposed coercion nor advice. If Susan made
mistakes, her husband knew that they were the mistakes of the head and not
of the heart, and left her to correct them in her own way.

Susan Hornby had always been free, and now the walls of love and trust
which Nathan Hornby had builded about their home for nearly twenty years
were to be a flawless rampart behind which he could take refuge from foes
without and receive help from within. At Nathan's request his wife came
day after day and listened to the discussions toward the end of the
session. Nathan sat before her dumb, but she was the anchor to his
drifting soul as the political landslide took the ground out from under
his feet.

"I only wisht I'd 'a' taken you in on this thing sooner," he said on one
occasion, and remembered those first weeks when he had felt
self-sufficient, and had made false mo