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“But I won’t leave you, father, I won’t—I won’t! It’ll be just the same for us—tell me it will!”

The old man smiled.

“Oh, yes,” he said, “that part of it’ll be all right. But tell me—what’s the rush?”

“Why, father, there isn’t any rush—only, don’t you know how every one’s against him just now?”

“Humph!” he said, “not if the reports of his meetings is correct, they hain’t.”

“Well, I know; but they tell such stories about him, and this horrible roorback—isn’t that what they call it?”

“Depends on who you mean by they,” he answered.

“Well, you know,” she said, in the assumption that avoided explanations, “I want to show them that I believe in him, anyway.”

“That’s like you, Em,” he said, smiling at her. “It’s like your mother, too.”

She was touched by this. He seldom spoke of her mother. And she drew nearer to him, and ran her fingers fondly through his white hair.

“Have you been thinking of her?” she asked, with a tender reverence.

“Some—to-night,” he said. “She stuck up for me once.” And then he was silent again.