ned to
forget that Tom was her brother, and henceforth she put her whole soul
into a crusade against sin, and Nancy McVeigh's tavern soon came under
the ban of her displeasure.

Nancy's place was four miles from town on the Monk Road, and Tom Piper
had found it a convenient spot for rest and refreshment, both going and
returning from his visit to Cousin Jim's. Sophia had often warned him
against the house, saying that it was an evil den, peopled with the
thriftless scourings of the countryside, and presided over by a sort of
human she-devil, who waited by the window to coax wayfarers in to buy
her vile drinks. Tom answered by repeating some of the good acts
traceable to Nancy McVeigh's door. He explained to her that the
hostess was just a poor, hard-worked woman, who reaped small reward for
her labors, and divided what she got with any who might be in need of
it. He also told of waifs whom Nancy had mothered and fed from her own
cupboard until they were old enough to shift for themselves. But
Sophia was firm in her convictions, and only permitted herself to know
one side of the story.

"No good can come out of that tavern," she had said, with a stamp of
her foot and a fire in her eye that forbade contradiction.

Through the vale of years Sophia never forgot the grudge, and when she
made herself an influence in the highest circles of reform, she turned
with grim persistence to the agitation for the cancelling of the tavern
license.

Nancy McVeigh, the woman against whom this thunderbolt was to be
launched, kept patiently at her work. She had heard of the efforts
being put forth, and often wondered why the great people bothered about
one of so little consequence as herself. She did not fight back, as
she had nothing to defend, but waited calmly, telling her neighbors,
when they came to gossip, that they need not worry her with news of it
at all.

Sophia championed her pet theme at the County Convention, and carried
it to an issue where she and a committee were empowered to wait on the
License Board with a strong plea in favor of the abolition of the
tavern. The three stout gentlemen who listened to their petition were
all good men who had families of their own and wanted as little evil as
possible abroad to tempt their boys from the better path. They gave a
long night's deliberation to the question, and then brought in a
verdict that they would extend Nancy's rights for another year. Sophia
was completely