's sociable but it ain't social--no, sir!"

Sam Ellis was going home from the party with his girl and two boys.

"Well, father," bitterly spoke up the eldest, "it's still our saloon
that's killing Jim Tumley, even though we aren't running it."

"Oh, father," murmured Tessie miserably, "can't you do anything about
it?"

Sam groaned.

"Dear God--what can I do? I tell you selling the hotel or renting it
or dynamiting it won't stop drinking in this town, so long as there are
men in it who want drink and will drink. I don't think even the vote
that that little girl suggested will do it. If you vote it out you'll
have blind pigs to fight. No, sir! It ain't my fault nor no one man's
fault. The whole town's to blame. There's only one thing will stop
it. If men in this country will quit making it other men will stop
drinking it. So long as it's made it'll be used. The whole country's
to blame."

Fanny Foster, having nobody else to talk to, was speaking her mind to
John, her husband.

"I told Grandma Wentworth nobody but the Almighty could do anything for
Jim. You'll see that I'm right. I know."

Fanny was right. But what she did not know was that she herself was to
be one of the instruments with which a stern and patient God was to
clean out forever the one foul blot on Green Valley life.

The one person who was not discussing Jim Tumley and his trouble was
Jocelyn. She couldn't. She was too occupied with troubles of her own.

She had been the first to leave. She slipped away unobserved for she
could not bear to have Green Valley see her leave without an escort.
So she got away as noiseless as a fairy. And for the first few rods
all was well. The excitement of the past hours, the worry of getting
away unseen, kept her mind occupied. But as the night wind cooled her
cheeks and the lighted house back of her grew smaller she grew
frightened. She was, after all, a city girl and to her there was
something fearful in the stillness of the country and the loneliness of
the dark road. She hurried her steps, jumped at every sound and grew
cold from pure terror as the awful stillness and emptiness closed in
about her. She stood still every few minutes, staring at blurred
bushes beside the road. The screech of an owl almost made her scream.
And in the dark the hard lumpy road hurt her feet cruelly. The little
slippers were never meant for dark country roads. So Jocelyn had to
pick her steps, and with eve