That man begun to quail, I see he did. But the thought of Snow, the darlin’, and our dear Babe at Jonesville nerved me up agin—the thought of them, our own treasures, and the hosts of pretty children all over our land, beloved by some hearts jest as dearly as our children wuz. And I went on more fiery than I had went, as I thought, why Babe is old enough now, and Snow will be in a little while, to lay their sweet little lives down under this Jugernut built up by the vile passions of men, and goin’ ahead of Isaac, lay themselves on the altar, take their own lives, and build up the fire to consume ’em. “The idee of law-makers who call themselves wise makin’ such laws as these!” He stopped a handlin’ that watch-chain of hisen, his head drooped, his hands dropped demutely into his lap. He murmured sunthin’ almost mechanically about “the law being on the statute-book.” “I know it is,” sez I. “I know the law is there. But let wimmen have a chance to vote; let a few mothers and grandmothers get holt of that statute-book, and see where that law would be.” Sez I eloquently, “No spring cleanin’ and scourin’ wuz ever done by females so thorough as they would cleanse out them old law books and let a little of God’s purity and justice shine into their musty old pages.” Sez I, “You made a great ado about Raymond losin’ that locket because it wuz precious with the memories of your lost wife—you treasured it as your most dear possession because it held a lock of her hair, because she gin it to you, and her love and tenderness seemed shinin’ out of every jewel in it. “But how would it be with a child that a mother left as a souvenir of her deathless love, a part of her own life left to a broken-hearted husband? Would a man who held such a child, such a little daughter to his achin’ heart, do and make a law by which the child could be lost and ruined forever? “No; the men that make these laws make ’em for other folks’es children, not their own. It is other fathers’ girls that they doom to ruin. When they license shameful houses it hain’t their own pretty daughters that they picture under the infamus ruffs, despised playthings for brutality and lust. No; it is some other parents’ daughters.” My tone had been awful eloquent and riz up, for nobody but the Lord knew how deeply I felt all I had said, and more than I ever could say on the subject. [Illustration: “MY TONE RIZ UP.” ] And I spoze I looked lofty and noble in my mean—I spoze so. Anyway, Senator Coleman quailed to a extent that I hardly ever see quailed in my hull life, and I have seen lots of quailin’ in my day. And I pressed home the charge. Sez I, “You say this law wuz made for girls; but what if this boy that your sweet Kate Fairfax left you had happened to be a girl, and had gin away all that makes life worth living, how would you have felt then, Senator Coleman?