itia--Lex--Integritas!_" he said. "Many a time, when the way
seemed darkest, I've read those words over to myself, and found hope in
them. Events changed, crises came and went, portents loomed thick,
despair seemed omnipotent, failure and disgrace inevitable--but the
motto of Alleghenia remained the same. Steadfast, purposeful, and
commanding, it has endured through the trivial changes of political
significance which have been as impotent to sully the actuality of her
fair fame as are sun-spots to dim the radiance of the sun. It is only
natural, perhaps, that the discouragements which were but transient
should have seemed to me to be vital, damning, irremediable. Just as the
Israelites of old turned from the promises of God to worship Baal, so
have I turned from the assurance given me by these arms of Alleghenia,
to prostrate myself before false idols of doubt and despair. I should
have remembered how they called me, in the first instance, from a life
of idleness and ease, to fight my way through the desert of difficulty,
toward the promised land of honor. I should have remembered how in my
darkest hours they went before me as a pillar of fire, how in the famine
of my soul these words were the manna of encouragement, how in my thirst
they struck clear water from the rock of adverse circumstance. But the
Israelites came back to their true God at last; so I, little girl, to my
true ideal. The Law!--you said the word--the Law is the clue, the
keynote, the boundary between right and wrong!"

She was at his side, and he slipped one arm around her, and held her
close to him as with his finger he traced again the motto of Alleghenia.

"Do you know what this means?" he asked. "_Justitia_,--to be just to all
men, without fear or favor, lenient to our enemies, rigid and
unyielding, if need be, to our friends; putting aside personal
considerations, striving so far as in us lies to be impartial, merciful
in the face of prejudice, relentless in that of conviction--fair!
_Lex_,--to abide by the law, in spirit only if our inmost conviction
warrants that course, but in letter absolutely where there is the
smallest hint of doubt; secure in the knowledge that, however fallible
it be, it is the best that man has yet been able to do in imitation of
the immutable decrees of God. _Integritas_,--to be true to the oaths we
have sworn, faithful to the promises we have made, loyal to the office
intrusted to us by the people, to whom and for whom