to
run for governor."

Austen went to the mantelpiece, and stood for a long time with his back
turned, staring at a crayon portrait of Colonel Peasley, in the uniform
in which he had fallen at the battle of Gettysburg. Then he swung about
and seized the member from Mercer by both broad shoulders.

"James Redbrook," he said, "until to-night I thought you were about as
long-headed and sensible a man as there was in the State."

"So I be," replied Mr. Redbrook, with a grin. "You ask young Tom
Gaylord."

"So Tom put you up to this nonsense."

"It ain't nonsense," retorted Mr. Redbrook, stoutly, "and Tom didn't put
me up to it. It's the' best notion that ever came into my mind."

Austen, still clinging to Mr. Redbrook's shoulders, shook his head
slowly.

"James," he said, "there are plenty of men who are better equipped than I
for the place, and in a better situation to undertake it. I--I'm much
obliged to you. But I'll help. I've got to go," he added; "the Honourable
Hilary wants to see me."

He went into the entry and put on his overshoes and his coat, while James
Redbrook regarded him with a curious mingling of pain and benevolence on
his rugged face.

"I won't press you now, Austen," he said, "but think on it. For God's
sake, think on it."

Outside, Austen paused in the snow once more, his brain awhirl with a
strange exaltation the like of which he had never felt before. Although
eminently human, it was not the fact that honest men had asked him to be
their governor which uplifted him,--but that they believed him to be as
honest as themselves. In that hour he had tasted life as he had never yet
tasted it, he had lived as he might never live again. Not one of them, he
remembered suddenly, had uttered a sentence of the political claptrap of
which he had heard so much. They had spoken from the soul; not bitterly,
not passionately, but their words had rung with the determination which
had made their forefathers and his leave home, toil, and kindred to fight
and die at Bunker Hill and Gettysburg for a principle. It had bean given
him to look that eight into the heart of a nation, and he was awed.

As he stood there under the winter moon, he gradually became conscious of
music, of an air that seemed the very expression of his mood. His eyes,
irresistibly drawn towards the Duncan house, were caught by the
fluttering of lace curtains at an open window. The notes were those of a
piano,--though the instrument mattere