oy."

The solemn little Jean was gone, in her place was this altogether
charming young person, whose shapely head was crowned with coils and
coils of red brown hair held in place by numerous quaintly carved silver
hairpins. If it had not been for the clear gray eyes and the quaint
fashion she still had of dropping her head on one side when solving some
momentous problem, the little Jean might have been a dream.

Presently the door opened and Judge Thorn entered.

"Nice evening, girls!"

"Delightful!"

"Blackstone, Jean?"

The young lady looked at the book quizzically a moment and then laughed.

"United States history, father. Last week I reviewed Caesar. Now I am
on this, and if I do my best I think I may reasonably hope to be in the
Third Reader by next week."

The judge laughed.

"I have been reading our constitution and looking over the record of
'the late unpleasantness,'" said Jean. "It is very interesting to me. Do
you know, father, I love every woman who gave a husband or a son to her
country, and I almost hold in reverence the memory of the men who shed
their blood to effect the abolition of human slavery in America."

The tall form of the Judge straightened and his eye brightened, like a
soldier's when he hears the names of his old battle-fields.

"Do not forget," he said, "that there were those who acted as brave a
part who never faced a cannon. It is easy to be borne by the force of a
great wave; but those who by their time and talents put the wave of
public opinion in motion are the real heroes.

"I can remember the time when a man who preached or taught Abolition was
looked upon as narrow-minded, fanatical, bigoted and even criminal. When
the name was a stench in the nostrils of the people even in
liberty-loving Boston. When men were rotten-egged, beaten, and in some
instances killed because they dared to follow the dictates of their own
consciences and make sentiment for the overthrow of the traffic in
humanity. It took all this to bring it about. No great moral reform
takes place without agitation, or without martyrs. Those men bore the
brunt of battle before the battle was. They were most surely heroes.
They made the tidal wave of opinion that swept the country with
insistent force and struck the shackles from 3,000,000 slaves."

"And you, father, were one of them," cried the enthusiastic girl. "What
perils you must have braved!"

"I did all I could, you may be sure," answered the judge,