t length. How were you
to foresee a certain day under the White Dome of the Capitol? Had your
sight been long, you would have paused before your answer. Had your
sight been long, you would have seen this ugly Lincoln bareheaded before
the Nation, and you are holding his hat. Judge Douglas, this act alone
has redeemed your faults. It has given you a nobility of which we did
not suspect you. At the end God gave you strength to be humble, and so
you left the name of a patriot.

Judge, you thought there was a passage between Scylla and Charybdis
which your craftiness might overcome.

"It matters not," you cried when you answered the Question, "it matters
not which way the Supreme Court may hereafter decide as to the abstract
question whether slavery may or may not go into a territory under
the Constitution. The people have the lawful means to introduce or to
exclude it as they please, for the reason that slavery cannot exist
a day or an hour anywhere unless it is supported by local police
regulations."

Judge Douglas, uneasy will you lie to-night, for you have uttered the
Freeport Heresy.

It only remains to be told how Stephen Brice, coming to the Brewster
House after the debate, found Mr. Lincoln. On his knee, in transports
of delight, was a small boy, and Mr. Lincoln was serenely playing on
the child's Jew's-harp. Standing beside him was a proud father who had
dragged his son across two counties in a farm wagon, and who was to
return on the morrow to enter this event in the family Bible. In a
corner of the room were several impatient gentlemen of influence who
wished to talk about the Question.

But when he saw Stephen, Mr. Lincoln looked up with a smile of welcome
that is still, and ever will be, remembered and cherished.

"Tell Judge Whipple that I have attended to that little matter, Steve,"
he said.

"Why, Mr. Lincoln," he exclaimed, "you have had no time."

"I have taken the time," Mr. Lincoln replied, "and I think that I am
well repaid. Steve," said he, "unless I'm mightily mistaken, you know a
little more than you did yesterday."

"Yes, sir! I do," said Stephen.

"Come, Steve," said Mr. Lincoln, "be honest. Didn't you feel sorry for
me last night?"

Stephen flushed scarlet.

"I never shall again, sir," he said.

The wonderful smile, so ready to come and go, flickered and went out. In
its stead on the strange face was ineffable sadness,--the sadness of the
world's tragedies, of Stephen stoned, of