e
truth of what he is saying, will capture the honest voter every time. I
tell you, little woman, there's a thing we politicians are constantly
losing sight of: that down at the bedrock bottom the American
voter--'the man in the street,' as the newspapers call him--is a fair
man and an honest man. Speaking broadly, you couldn't buy him with a
clear title to a quarter-section in Paradise."

This little eulogy upon the American voter appeared to be wasted upon
the small person in the wicker rocking-chair. "We must get him back,"
she remarked, referring, not to the American voter, but to the senator's
son. "Have you thought of any plan?"

"No."

She smiled up at him sweetly. "You are like the good doctor who cannot
prescribe for the members of his own family. If he were anybody else's
son, you would know exactly what to do."

"Perhaps I should."

"I have a plan," she went on quietly, bending again over her embroidery.
"He may have to take a regular course of treatment, and it may make him
very ill; would you mind that?"

David Blount leaned back in his chair and regarded her through
half-closed eyelids. "You're a wonder, little woman," he said; and then:
"I don't want to see the boy suffer any more than he has to."

"Neither do I," was the swift agreement. Then, with no apparent
relevance: "What do you think of Miss Anners?"

The senator sat up at the question, with the slow smile wrinkling
humorously at the corners of his eyes.

"I haven't thought much about her yet. She's the kind that won't let you
get near enough in a single sitting to think much about her, isn't she?"

"She is a young woman with an exceedingly bright mind and a very high
purpose," was the little lady's summing-up of Patricia. "But she isn't
altogether a Boston iceberg. She thinks she is irrevocably in love with
her chosen career; but, really, I believe she is very much in love with
Evan. If we could manage to win her over to our side as an active
ally--"

This time the senator's smile broadened into a laugh.

"You are away yonder out of my depth now," he chuckled. "Does your
course of treatment for the boy include large doses of the young woman,
administered frequently?"

"Oh, no," was the instant reply. "I was only wondering if it wouldn't be
well to enroll her--enlist her sympathies, you know."

"Why not?--if you think best? You're the fine-haired little wire-puller,
and it's all in your hands."

"Will you give me _carte-blanche_