“Ken is so impressionable that I’m afraid this defeat will ruin his life,” said Beth, softly.  “I wish we could get him away.  Couldn’t we get him to withdraw?”

“He might be suddenly called to Europe,” suggested Louise.  “That would take him away from the place and give him a change of scene.”

Patsy shook her head.

“Kenneth isn’t a coward,” she said.  “He won’t run away.  He must accept his defeat like a man, and some time try again.  Eh, Uncle John?”

Uncle John turned around and regarded his three nieces critically.

“What makes you think he will be defeated?” he asked.

“He says so himself,” answered Patsy.

“He writes me he can see no hope, for the people are all against him,” added Louise.

“Pah!” said Uncle John, contemptuously.  “What else does the idiot say?”

“That he’s lonely and discouraged, and had to pour out his heart to some one or go wild,” said Patsy, the tears of sympathy filling her eyes.

“And you girls propose to sit down and allow all this?” inquired their uncle sternly.

“We?” answered Louise, lifting her brows and making a pretty gesture.  “What can we do?”

“Go to work!” said Uncle John.

“How?” asked Patsy, eagerly.

“Politics is a game,” declared Mr. Merrick.  “It’s never won until the last card is played.  And success doesn’t lie so much in the cards as the way you play ’em.  Here are three girls with plenty of shrewdness and energy.  Why don’t you take a hand in the game and win it?”

“Oh, Uncle John!”

The proposition was certainly disconcerting at first.

“Yes, yes!” laughed the Major, derisively.  “Put on some blue stockings, read the history of woman’s suffrage, cultivate a liking for depraved eggs, and then face Kenneth’s enraged constituents!”

“I shouldn’t mind, daddy, if it would help Kenneth any,” declared Patsy, stoutly.

“Go on, Uncle John,” said Beth, encouragingly.

“Women in politics,” observed their uncle, “have often been a tremendous power.  You won’t need to humiliate yourselves, my dears.  All you’ll need to do is to exercise your wits and work earnestly for the cause.  There are a hundred ways to do that.”

“Mention a few,” proposed the Major.

“I will when I get to Elmhurst and look over the ground,” answered Uncle John.

“You’re going on, then?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Patsy promptly.

“So will I,” said Beth.  “Kenneth needs moral encouragement and support as much as anything else, just now.”

“He’s imagining all sorts of horrors and making himself miserable,” said Louise.  “Let’s all go, Uncle, and try to cheer him up.”

By this time Uncle John was smiling genially.

“Why, I was sure of you, my dears, from the first,” he said.  “The Major’s an old croaker, but he’d go, too, if it were not necessary for him to stay in New York and attend to business.  But we mustn’t lose any time, if we’re going to direct the politics of the Eighth District Election the eighth of November.”