he was trying to solve some knotty problem.

Her father smiled. It seemed she was the little Jean come back.

[Illustration: _Give me some, quick!_]

CHAPTER III.

JEAN THE ABOLITIONIST.

"Come in, father, and make yourself comfortable." It was Jean speaking,
as she stood in the glow of the library lamp. "I have been waiting for
you. You need not cast your eye around for the paper; you will not find
it until my case has had a hearing."

Judge Thorn sank into the great easy chair before the fire with an air
of forced resignation, and the young woman continued:

"It is quite necessary nowadays, you know, for women to have 'ideas.' I
have ideas on social and moral questions, but I do not know just where I
belong when it comes to politics."

The judge lifted his hands with a show of expostulation.

"So our Jean would be a politician," he cried. "Oh, the times! Oh, the
customs!"

"Not quite so bad as that, father," replied the young woman, smiling but
serious; "but I am in downright earnest. The making, the unmaking and
the enforcing of law are politics, and every American woman should have
an interest in these things. Every thinking woman must have an interest
in them. I must know more of politics."

"You are right," said her father, thoughtfully; "you are right. I do not
believe a woman should get out of her sphere, but a woman's influence is
mighty, and inasmuch as all law and reform come through the ballot box,
there can be no harm in her giving an intelligent hearing to politics."

"Then, father, please listen to me for a few minutes; I want to tell you
what has set me to thinking along these lines. Two weeks ago you brought
Maggie Crowley here. I went to see her in her room the next morning, and
she told me her story. Her mother was sick, the children were hungry and
cold, so she started out to find the father before he had spent his
money for drink.

"When she finally found him, she found him in a saloon in the act of
handing over his last dollar to pay for liquor that others had drunk as
well as himself. She got the dollar some way and started home, when, as
she said, she fell. The dollar rolled into the street and a passerby
picked it up and pocketed it, in spite of the fact that she told him
that it was hers, and that it was the last.

"I shall never forget the way she looked when she came to this part of
her story. Her eyes brimmed with tears and her voice was lost in a great
big sob. She