e
was any prospect that it would be achieved. Then the national party
arose to carry it out by political methods. It probably took that name
because its aim was to nationalize the functions of production and
distribution. Indeed, it could not well have had any other name, for
its purpose was to realize the idea of the nation with a grandeur and
completeness never before conceived, not as an association of men for
certain merely political functions affecting their happiness only
remotely and superficially, but as a family, a vital union, a common
life, a mighty heaven-touching tree whose leaves are its people, fed
from its veins, and feeding it in turn. The most patriotic of all
possible parties, it sought to justify patriotism and raise it from
an instinct to a rational devotion, by making the native land truly a
father land, a father who kept the people alive and was not merely an
idol for which they were expected to die."

[Footnote 4: I fully admit the difficulty of accounting for the course
of the anarchists on any other theory than that they were subsidized
by the capitalists, but, at the same time, there is no doubt that the
theory is wholly erroneous. It certainly was not held at the time by
any one, though it may seem so obvious in the retrospect.]

CHAPTER XXV.

The personality of Edith Leete had naturally impressed me strongly
ever since I had come, in so strange a manner, to be an inmate of her
father's house, and it was to be expected that after what had happened
the night previous, I should be more than ever preoccupied with
thoughts of her. From the first I had been struck with the air of
serene frankness and ingenuous directness, more like that of a noble
and innocent boy than any girl I had ever known, which characterized
her. I was curious to know how far this charming quality might be
peculiar to herself, and how far possibly a result of alterations in
the social position of women which might have taken place since my
time. Finding an opportunity that day, when alone with Dr. Leete, I
turned the conversation in that direction.

"I suppose," I said, "that women nowadays, having been relieved of the
burden of housework, have no employment but the cultivation of their
charms and graces."

"So far as we men are concerned," replied Dr. Leete, "we should
consider that they amply paid their way, to use one of your forms of
expression, if they confined themselves to that occupation, but you
may