lative vote is being
circulated to do you harm."

This letter alarmed Bradley, and at once showed him what a fight the
Judge was making. Suddenly he woke to the fact that defeat would be
unwelcome. Congress had come at last to have a subtle fascination, and
he loved the city and its noble buildings, its theatres, and its
libraries. Since that fatal letter from Ida he had been forced to go
more often to the theatres and concerts. They seemed now like
necessities to him, and the thought of going back to private life was
not at all pleasant. He therefore got leave of absence, and took the
train for Rock River.

He did not see so much of the outside world on this return trip. His
trouble came back upon him, mixed, too, with something sweet which lay
in the fact of a return to the West. He caught a thrill of this as the
train dipped and swung round a peak on the west slope of the
Alleghanies, and for a single instant the sea of sun-illumined swells
and peaks of foliage broke upon the eyes and then was lost, and the
train dropped down into the rising darkness of the valley.

It came to him again the next afternoon as he rode away over the wide,
low swells of the prairies between Chicago and the Mississippi. It was
a beautiful showery June day. A day of alternate warm rain and
brilliant sunshine, and the rushing engine plunged into trailing clouds
of rain only to burst forth into sunshine again with exultant shrieks
of untamed energy, and listening to it one might have fancied it a
living thing with capability to snuff the glorious west wind, and eyes
to reflect the cool green swells of pasture.

It was a magnificent thing to step off the Chicago sleeper into the
broad morning at Rock River. Soaring streamers of red and flame-color
arched the eastern sky like the dome of a mighty pagoda. Birds were
singing in the cool, sweet hush; roosters were crowing; the air was
full of the scent of fresh leaves and succulent, springing grain.
Bradley abandoned himself to the spring, and his walk up the quiet
street was a keen delight. The town seemed wofully small and shabby and
lifeless; but it had trees and birds and earth-smell to compensate for
other things.

There was no one at the station to receive him, not even a 'bus. The
station agent said:

"Guess the Judge didn't know you was comin' or he'd been down here with
a band-wagon."

Mrs. Brown was in the kitchen bent above a pan of sizzling meat. A
Norwegian girl with vivid