ory. It sounded like the _Lady of the Lake_ at times. Grahame
yawned--he had heard it so often. Arthur gathered that she had somewhere
suffered the tortures of the Inquisition, that innocent girls were
enjoying the same experience in the convents of the country, that they
were deserted both of God and man, and that she alone had taken up their
cause. She was a devoted Catholic, and could never change her faith; if
she appealed to her audience, it was only to interest them in behalf of
her suffering sisters.

"That's the artistic touch," Grahame whispered again. "But it won't pay.
Her revelations must get more salaciousness after election."

Arthur hardly heard him. Where had he seen and heard this woman before?
Though he could not recall a feature of her face, form, dress, manner,
yet he had the puzzling sense of having met her long ago, that her
personality was not unfamiliar. Still her features baffled the sense. He
studied her in vain. When her lecture ended, with drooping head and
clasped hands, she modestly withdrew amid fervid acclamations.

Strange and bewildering were the currents of intrigue that made up a
campaign in the great city; not to mention the hidden forces whose
current no human could discern. Arthur went about exercising his talent
for oratory in behalf of Birmingham, and found consolation in the
sincere applause of humble men, and of boys subdued by the charm of his
manner. He learned that the true orator expresses not only his own
convictions and emotions, but also the unspoken thoughts, the mute
feelings, the cloudy convictions of the simple multitude. He is their
interpreter to themselves. The thought gave him reverence for that power
which had lain long dormant in him until sorrow waked its noble
harmonies. The ferment in the city astonished him. The very boys fought
in the vacant lots, and reveled in the strategy of crooked streets and
blind alleys. Kindly women, suddenly reminded that the Irish were a race
of slaves, banged their doors, and flirted their skirts in scorn.
Workmen lost their job here and there, mates fought at the workbench,
the bully found his excuse to beat the weak, all in the name of
Livingstone. The small business men, whose profits came from both sides,
did severe penance for their sins of sanded sugar and deficient weight.
The police found their nerves overstrained.

To him the entire drama of the campaign had the interest of an
impossible romance. It was a struggle be