daughter, Fern Fenwick, as the sole heir to his vast wealth.
With the exception of three months each summer, spent at Fairy Fern
Cottage, or some mountain resort near it, she had remained quietly at
Fenwick Hall, busily engaged in rebuilding and refitting it. Meanwhile
under the instruction of able teachers, she had been hard at work in
efforts to supplement her excellent collegiate education with a better
knowledge of history and by a more complete mastery of the subtle
secrets of the higher sciences, as exponents of the powers, properties
and purposes of the inherent forces belonging to the various
departments of Nature's vast domain.

After much deliberation she had undertaken this work to enable her to
wisely prepare and plan for a life work in harmony with her lofty ideas
on the subject--ideas which had been slowly ripening in her mind for
many months. Having passed the ordeal of this severe post graduate
course of general study, she felt herself prepared to commence the work
contemplated by her general plan, which embraced a skillful use of the
great educational and social advantages of Fenwick Hall, in her
endeavors to bring to the leading minds of the political and social
circles of Washington a clear conception of the importance and
significance of the real purpose of human life; with a view to reforming
ethical, social, industrial and political organizations on the true
basis of the unselfishness of the individual for the advancement of the
race; thus bringing these organizations into exact and co-operative
harmony with the object and purpose of the existence of the planet.
Systems so organized, would then be in line with a true conception of
the functions of an ideal republic--a government for the people, of the
people and by the people; conducted for the benefit, protection and
development of all the people. With the world organized into families of
such republics, the advent of the millennium could be predicted, and the
advancement of the race to the point of perfection would be insured.

CHAPTER XX.

THE BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA.

From a careful review of her historical studies, Fern Fenwick came to
the conclusion that the competitive system was responsible for a
majority of the evils which had so retarded the world's progress. She
discovered that this same system was the father of a conscienceless
commercial spirit which had existed for many centuries as the basis of
all social organization. Tha