rown into manhood and taken
a seat among the highest, to share with them the responsibilities of
manhood.

Meanwhile, Stephen Brice had been given permission to practise law
in the sovereign state of Missouri. Stephen understood Judge Whipple
better. It cannot be said that he was intimate with that rather
formidable personage, although the Judge, being a man of habits, had
formed that of taking tea at least once a week with Mrs. Brice. Stephen
had learned to love the Judge, and he had never ceased to be grateful to
him for a knowledge of that man who had had the most influence upon his
life,--Abraham Lincoln.

For the seed, sowed in wisdom and self-denial, was bearing fruit. The
sound of gathering conventions was in the land, and the Freeport Heresy
was not for gotten.

We shall not mention the number of clients thronging to Mr. Whipple's
office to consult Mr. Brice. These things are humiliating. Some of
Stephen's income came from articles in the newspapers of that day.
What funny newspapers they were, the size of a blanket! No startling
headlines such as we see now, but a continued novel among the
advertisements on the front page and verses from some gifted lady of
the town, signed Electra. And often a story of pure love, but more
frequently of ghosts or other eerie phenomena taken from a magazine, or
an anecdote of a cat or a chicken. There were letters from citizens who
had the mania of print, bulletins of different ages from all parts of
the Union, clippings out of day-before-yesterday's newspaper of Chicago
or Cincinnati to three-weeks letters from San Francisco, come by the
pony post to Lexington and then down the swift Missouri. Of course,
there was news by telegraph, but that was precious as fine gold,--not to
be lightly read and cast aside.

In the autumn of '59, through the kindness of Mr. Brinsmade, Stephen had
gone on a steamboat up the river to a great convention in Iowa. On this
excursion was much of St. Louis's bluest blood. He widened his circle
of acquaintances, and spent much of his time walking the guards between
Miss Anne Brinsmade and Miss Puss Russell. Perhaps it is unfair to these
young ladies to repeat what they said about Stephen in the privacy of
their staterooms, gentle Anne remonstrating that they should not gossip,
and listening eagerly the while, and laughing at Miss Puss, whose
mimicry of Stephen's severe ways brought tears to her eyes.

Mr. Clarence Colfax was likewise on the boat,