citizens." To put the matter brutally,
politics, despite the lofty sentiments on the transparencies in
torchlight processions, had only to do with the belly, not the soul.

Politics and government, one perceives, had nothing to do with religion,
nor education with any of these. A secularized and disjointed world! Our
leading citizens, learned in the classics though some of them might be,
paid no heed to the dictum of the Greek idealist, who was more practical
than they would have supposed. "The man who does not carry his city
within his heart is a spiritual starveling."

One evening, a year or two after that tariff campaign, I was pretending
to study my lessons under the student lamp in the sitting-room while my
mother sewed and my father wrote at his desk, when there was a ring at
the door-bell. I welcomed any interruption, even though the visitor
proved to be only the druggist's boy; and there was always the
possibility of a telegram announcing, for instance, the death of a
relative. Such had once been the case when my Uncle Avery Paret had died
in New York, and I was taken out of school for a blissful four days for
the funeral.

I went tiptoeing into the hall and peeped over the banisters while Ella
opened the door. I heard a voice which I recognized as that of Perry
Blackwood's father asking for Mr. Paret; and then to my astonishment, I
saw filing after him into the parlour some ten or twelve persons. With
the exception of Mr. Ogilvy, who belonged to one of our old families, and
Mr. Watling, a lawyer who had married the youngest of Gene Hollister's
aunts, the visitors entered stealthily, after the manner of burglars;
some of these were heavy-jowled, and all had an air of mystery that
raised my curiosity and excitement to the highest pitch. I caught hold of
Ella as she came up the stairs, but she tore herself free, and announced
to my father that Mr. Josiah Blackwood and other gentlemen had asked to
see him. My father seemed puzzled as he went downstairs.... A long
interval elapsed, during which I did not make even a pretence of looking
at my arithmetic. At times the low hum of voices rose to what was almost
an uproar, and on occasions I distinguished a marked Irish brogue.

"I wonder what they want?" said my mother, nervously.

At last we heard the front door shut behind them, and my father came
upstairs, his usually serene face wearing a disturbed expression.

"Who in the world was it, Mr. Paret?" asked my mot