"It is my experience," said she with an air of superiority that would have been amusing if she had spoken less earnestly--"it is my experience that one should never think of anything in which one has come to grief. I know, when one is going at a big thing--a double post and rails with a ditch, or anything like that, you know--it would never do to remember that you have come off at the same thing or at something else before. When a man is always remembering his last tumble he has lost his nerve, and had better give up hunting altogether. Thinking that you may get an ugly fall will not help you over anything." "No," said John, "that is very true." "You must forget all about it and begin again. You have missed one bird, but you are a good shot, and you will not miss the next." "You are a most encouraging person, Miss Thorn," said John with a faint smile. "But you know the only test of a good shot is that one hits the mark. I have missed at the first trial, and that is no reason why I should not miss at the second, too." "You are disappointed and unhappy now," said Joe, gently. "It is very natural indeed. Anybody would feel like that. But you must not believe in yourself any less than your friends believe in you." "I fancy my friends do not all think alike," answered John. "But I am grateful to you for what you say." He was indeed grateful, and the soothing sound of her gentle voice was the best refreshment for his troubled spirit. He thought for a moment how brave a man could be with such a woman by his side; and the thought pleased him, the more because he knew that it could not be realized. They sat in silence for a while, contented to be together, and in sympathy. But before long the anxiety for the future and the sense of his peculiar position came over John again. "Do you know," he said, "there are times when I regret it all very much? I never told any one so before--perhaps I was never so sure of it as I have been since this affair." "What is it that you regret so much?" asked Joe, softly. "It is a noble life." "It is, indeed, if only a man knows how to live it," answered John. "But sometimes I think I do not. You once said a very true thing to me about it all. Do you remember?" "No; what was it?" "You said I should not succeed because I am not enough of a partisan, and because every one is a partisan here." "Did I? Yes, I remember saying it," answered Joe, secretly pleased that he should not have forgotten it. "I do not think it is so very true, after all. It is true to-day; but it is for men like you to set things right, to make partisanship a thing of the past. Men ought to make laws because they are just and necessary, not in order that they may profit by them at the expense of the rest of the world. And to have such good laws men ought to choose good men to represent them."