But I wrote chiefly for one reader. He would have opened his eyes if I had told him that a young music-teacher in Columbus, Ohio, had a large share in conducting the journal. Over my desk in my rooms I had had framed, in illuminated text, the words she had spoken to me on the most memorable day of my life: "The editor has exceptional opportunities, and might be the knight-errant of our age. If in earnest, and on the right side, he can forge a weapon out of public opinion that few evils could resist. He is in just the position to discover these dragons and drive them from their hiding-places." The spirit that breathed in these words I tried to make mine, for I wished to feel and think as she did. While I maintained my individuality of thought I never touched a question but that I first looked at it from her standpoint. I labored for weeks over an editorial entitled "Truth versus Conscience," and sent it like an arrow into the West. CHAPTER XIX ADAH I heard often from the farmhouse, and learned that Mr. Hearn had gone to Europe almost immediately, but that he had returned in the latter part of September, and had spent a week with his little girl, Mrs. Bradford, his sister, accompanying him. "They seem to think Adela is doing so well," Mrs. Yocomb wrote, "that they have decided to leave her here through October. Adah spends part of every forenoon teaching the little girls." In the latter part of November I received a letter that made my heart beat thick and fast. "We expect thee to eat thy Thanksgiving dinner with us, and we expect also a friend from the West. I think she will treat thee civilly. At any rate we have a right to invite whom we please. We drew up a petition to Emily, and all signed it. Father added a direful postscript. He said, 'If thee won't come quietly, I will go after thee. Thee thinks I am a man of peace, but there will be commotion and violence in Ohio if thee doesn't come; so, strong-willed as thee is, thee has got to yield for once.' She wrote father the funniest letter in reply, in which she agreed, for the credit of the Society of Friends, not to provoke him to extremities. She doesn't know thee is coming, but I think she knows me well enough to be sure that thee would be invited. Emily writes that she will not return to New York to live, since she can obtain more scholars than she needs at Columbus." Mrs. Yocomb also added that Adah had left home that day for an extended visit in the city, and she gave me her address. I had written to Adah more than once, and had made out a programme of what we should do when she came to town.