when your lips are silent. It must show in your life and
fill the spaces between your words. It will help you to choose and charge
them with the love of great things that carry conviction.

"I remember when I was a boy over in Gentryville a shaggy, plain-dressed
man rode up to the door one day. He had a cheerful, kindly face. His
character began to speak to us before he opened his mouth to ask for a
drink of water.

"'I don't know who you are,' my father said. 'But I'd like it awful well
if you'd light an' talk to us.' He did and we didn't know till he had
gone that he was the Governor of the state. A good character shines like
a candle on a dark night. You can't mistake it. A firefly can't hold his
light long enough to compete with it.

"Webster said in the Knapp trial: 'There is no evil that we can not
either face or fly from but the consciousness of duty disregarded.'

"A great truth like that makes wonderful music on the lips of a sincere
man. An orator must be a lover and discoverer of such unwritten laws."

It was nearing midnight when they heard footsteps on the board walk in
front of the house. In a moment Harry Needles entered in cavalry uniform
with fine top boots and silver spurs, erect as a young Indian brave and
bronzed by tropic suns.

"Hello!" he said as he took off his belt and clanking saber. "I hang up
my sword. I have had enough of war."

He had ridden across country from the boat landing and arriving so late
had left his horse at a livery stable.

"I'm lucky to find you and Abe and Joe all up and waiting for me," he
said as he shook their hands "How is mother?"

"I'm well," Sarah called from the top of the stairway. "I'll be down in
a minute."

For an hour or more they sat by the fireside while Harry told of his
adventures in the great swamps of Southern Florida.

"I've done my share of the fighting," he said at length. "I'm going north
to-morrow to find Bim and her mother."

"I shall want you to serve a complaint on one Lionel Davis," said Mr.
Lincoln.

"I have one of my own to serve on him," Harry answered. "But I hope that
our case can be settled out of court."

"I think that I'll go with you as far as Tazewell County and draw the
papers there," said Lincoln.

When the latter had left for his lodgings and Joe and his mother had gone
to bed, Samson told Harry the details of his visit to Chicago.

"She may have taken the disease and died with it before now," said the
young man.