y came here they at first lived on Front street, which is near
the river, and Martha caught the chills and fever. William soon lost his
place, and they moved across the river to D----. He became known as a
speaker, and things have been going from bad to worse; the children have
come fast, and Martha has never really recovered from her fever; and they
have had simply an awfully hard time. I haven't seen Martha for three
months, and have tried in vain to find out where she lived. Poor Martha!
she has never complained, but it has been a hard life for her."

"Yes, a hard life," repeated the countess, rising and putting on her
jacket; "but it seems to me she has chiefly her own husband to thank for
it. And six children! I have my opinion of Mr. William Bailey."

"You are hardly just to Bailey, Helen: he has sacrificed his own interests
to his principles. He is as honest--as honest as the Christian martyrs,
though he _is_ an infidel."

"The Christian martyrs always struck me as a singularly unpractical set of
people," said the countess.

"Maybe: nevertheless, they founded a religion and changed the world. And,
Helen, you and the people like you laugh at Communism and the complaints
of the laboring classes, but it's like Samson and the Philistines; and
this Samson, blind though he is, will one day, unless we do something
besides laugh, pull the pillars down on his head--and on ours."

"He will _try_" said the countess: "if we are wise, we shall be ready and
shoot him dead." She kissed Mrs. Greymer smilingly, and went away. Her
friend, watching her from the window, saw her stop to pat a great dog on
the head and give a little boy a nickel piece.

One Sunday afternoon, two weeks later, the two friends crossed the bridge
to D---- to visit the Baileys. When they reached the end of the bridge
they paused a moment to rest. The day was one of those warm, bright spring
days which deceitfully presage an immediate summer. On the river-shore
crawfishes were lazily creeping over the gravel. The air rang with the
blue jay's chatter, a robin showed his tawny breast among the withered
grasses, and a flicker on a dead stump bobbed his little red-barred head
and fluttered his yellow wings. Beneath the bridge the swift current
sparkled in the sun. Over the river, on each side, rose the hills. The
gray stone of the government works was visible to the right through the
leafless trees: nearer, square, yellow and ugly, stood the old arsenal. A