dness too deep for tears. "The environment does have a
good deal to do with the character. It does not stand to reason that
these people can always resist the sight and smell of the devilish
drink about them. O Lord, how long shall Christian people continue
to support by their silence and their ballots the greatest form of
slavery known in America?"

He asked the question, and did not have much hope of an immediate
answer. There was a ray of hope in the action of Friday night's
primary, but what the result would be he did not dare to anticipate.
The whiskey forces were organized, alert, aggressive, roused into
unusual hatred by the events of the last week at the tent and in the
city. Would the Christian forces act as a unit against the saloon?
Or would they be divided on account of their business interests or
because they were not in the habit of acting all together as the
whiskey power always did? That remained to be seen. Meanwhile the
saloon reared itself about the Rectangle like some deadly viper
hissing and coiling, ready to strike its poison into any unguarded
part.

Saturday afternoon as Virginia was just stepping out of her house to
go and see Rachel to talk over her new plans, a carriage drove up
containing three of her fashionable friends. Virginia went out to
the drive-way and stood there talking with them. They had not come
to make a formal call but wanted Virginia to go driving with them up
on the boulevard. There was a band concert in the park. The day was
too pleasant to be spent indoors.

"Where have you been all this time, Virginia?" asked one of the
girls, tapping her playfully on the shoulder with a red silk
parasol. "We hear that you have gone into the show business. Tell us
about it."

Virginia colored, but after a moment's hesitation she frankly told
something of her experience at the Rectangle. The girls in the
carriage began to be really interested.

"I tell you, girls, let's go 'slumming' with Virginia this afternoon
instead of going to the band concert. I've never been down to the
Rectangle. I've heard it's an awful wicked place and lots to see.
Virginia will act as guide, and it would be"--"real fun" she was
going to say, but Virginia's look made her substitute the word
"interesting."

Virginia was angry. At first thought she said to herself she would
never go under such circumstances. The other girls seemed to be of
the same mind with the speaker. They chimed in with earnestness and