held it. It seemed, for a minute, as if everybody all over the house was
doing the same thing, too, so absolutely still was it, after that one
word--"nothing." They were beginning to understand--a little. I could
tell that. They were beginning to see this big thing that was taking
place right before their eyes. I glanced at the little woman down in
front. The tender glow on her face had grown and deepened and broadened
until her whole little brown-clad self seemed transfigured. My own eyes
dimmed as I looked. Then, suddenly I became aware that the Honorable
Jonas Whitermore was speaking again.

"And not for one year only, nor two, nor ten, has this quintessence of
devotion been mine," he was saying, "but for twice ten and then a score
more--for forty years. For forty years! Did you ever stop to think how
long forty years could be--forty years of striving and straining, of
pinching and economizing, of serving and sacrificing? Forty years of
just loving somebody else better than yourself, and doing this every
day, and every hour of the day for the whole of those long forty years?
It isn't easy to love somebody else always better than yourself,
you know! It means the giving up of lots of things that you want.
You might do it for a day, for a month, for a year even--but for forty
years! Yet she has done it--that most wonderful woman. Do you wonder
that I say it is to her, and to her alone, under God, that I owe all
that I am, all that I hope to be?"

Once more he paused. Then, in a voice that shook a little at the first,
but that rang out clear and strong and powerful at the end, he said:

"Ladies, gentlemen, I understand this will close your programme. It will
give me great pleasure, therefore, if at the adjournment of this meeting
you will allow me to present you to the most wonderful woman in the