omises them
the most in the way of reform, instead of making so much fuss and
striking and splitting into small parties that can hope to effect
nothing and might cripple their best friend and put the country
hopelessly in the hands of the political enemies of progress and
reform."

Jean laughed.

"You look now for all the world, father, like a child whom I saw a few
days ago. I came upon her holding a doll's body, with a stump of neck
where the head had once been. She looked down at it tenderly and smiled
a dear little motherly smile. 'What do you see, child?' I asked. 'My
dolly's beautiful face,' she said. 'Where is it?' said I. 'It's gone,'
she answered, proudly, but with the fond look still in her eyes. You
view the reform element in your party in about the same light."

"When did you turn champion of the labor party?" said the judge, a
trifle impatiently.

"I have done no turning. There is but one party standing for the real
good of the people. What is the use of organizing a party to exterminate
trusts and then being afraid to measure arms politically with the
greatest trust on earth? The laboring element will seek their best
interests sooner or later."

"Your party has added a few labor planks to catch votes."

"I beg your pardon, father. Almost from the beginning, some thirty years
ago, this party stood as it does now. The trouble with you is, if I may
be allowed to say it, you know nothing of the party I have discovered.
Let me read you its platform."

And from a small, green book Jean began her reading, while Judge Thorn
listened attentively. But before she had finished James appeared with
the evening paper, and almost unconsciously he opened it. As he cast his
eyes on the page a smile overspread his face, and the words of the
reading were lost. Jean finished presently, and frowned a little, when
she saw her father so deeply engrossed in his paper. Presently he looked
up, the broad smile still upon his face.

"Jean, my girl, listen!" and he read an account of the dramatic passage
of the anti-canteen law by Congress.

Judge Thorn had been deeply interested in the canteen question. He had
known a boy, the son of a professional friend, who had been most
carefully and prayerfully reared at home in fear of the inheritance of
an appetite for liquor, but who had gone at his country's call to uphold
her honor, and had become a drunkard through the regimental canteen. He
himself had seen the fifty law-breaki