hrilled with a new emotion and her fine eyes glowed with
prophetic hopefulness.

"But the best people would be all with you," put in a young woman at the
other end of the table.

"Would they, I wonder?" queried Miss Van Deusen. "From the time of the
Nazarene down to today, some of the best people have found it
inexpedient to stand by the right when it was presented in strange or
new guise; and surely this would be a novel innovation--a woman for
mayor."

"But you have courage enough," urged Mrs. Mason.

"If there was ever a woman with ideals," said Mary Snow, a newspaper
woman who had not yet spoken, "her name was--is Gertrude Van Deusen."

"Friends," said Miss Van Deusen, "I'm going to stick to my guns. I said
in my haste that I'd never let the figure-head of Defeat worry or scare
me; that I would put up a fight. Well, I'll make the fight, I'll stand
for the nomination and if I get it, for election."

"Three cheers for Gertrude Van Deusen," cried Mrs. Mason, and a vigorous
round of hand-claps was her answer. Handkerchiefs were waved and there
was excitement among the P. W.'s.

"My husband has just got to take the stump for you," said the fluffy
woman. "I'll make him."

"Thank you, Bella," was Miss Van Deusen's reply. "I suppose I shall be
emblazoned and lauded and berated in the newspapers, and shall come out
at the end of the campaign with scarcely a rag of reputation left,
whether I win or lose."

"You are going to win, Gertrude," said Mrs. Bateman calmly.

"Yes, I'm going to win," answered the younger woman. And as she sat with
her handsome head thrown hack and her far-seeing gaze looking out and
past the assembled women into the stormy future, not one of them
doubted, at the moment, the truth of her confident prophecy.

CHAPTER II

A Perplexed Reformer

The chairman of the Roma Municipal League had just finished dictating
his morning's letters and was leaning back in his half-turned swivel
chair. At another desk his secretary worked perfunctorily, awaiting
orders from his chief.

"Anything from Wilkins?" asked the latter.

"Worse. Won't live many weeks. Going South tomorrow," answered the
secretary.

"Or Bateman?--or Mason?"

"Mason wouldn't touch politics with a pair of tongs,--so he says," the
secretary answered. "As for Judge Bateman,--I tell you, Allingham, if
such men as he would do their duty, there'd be some hope of cleaning out
the Augean stables. But it's hopeless. There isn'