And what was this system which he had built up among these rural communities?  It might aptly be called the System of Mortgages.  The mortgage—­dread name for a dreadful thing—­was the chief weapon of the monster.  Even as Jethro Bass held the mortgages of Coniston and Tarleton and round about, so his lieutenants held mortgages in every town and hamlet of the state, What was a poor farmer to do—?  His choice was not between right and wrong, but between a roof over the heads of his wife and children and no roof.  He must vote for the candidate of Jethro Bass end corruption or become a homeless wanderer.  How the gentleman and his other respectable backers were to fight the system the article did not say.  Were they to buy up all the mortgages?  As a matter of fact, they intended to buy up enough of these to count, but to mention this would be to betray the methods of Mr. Worthington’s reform.  The first bitter frontier fighting between the advance cohorts of the new giant and the old—­the struggle for the caucuses and the polls—­had begun.  Miss Sadler cared but little and understood less of all this matter.  She lingered over the sentences which described Jethro Bass as a monster of iniquity, as a pariah with whom decent men would have no intercourse, and in the heat of her passion that one who had touched him had gained admittance to the most exclusive school for young ladies in the country she wrote a letter.

Miss Sadler wrote the letter, and three hours later tore it up and wrote another and more diplomatic one.  Mrs. Merrill, though not by any means of the same importance as Mrs. Duncan, was not a person to be wantonly offended, and might—­knowing nothing about the monster—­in the goodness of her heart have taken the girl into her house.  Had it been otherwise, surely Mrs. Merrill would not have had the effrontery!  She would give Mrs. Merrill a chance.  The bell of release from studies was ringing as she finished this second letter, and Miss Sadler in her haste forgot to enclose the clippings.  She ran out in time to intercept Susan Merrill at the door, and to press into her hands the clippings and the note, with a request to take both to her mother.

Although the Duncans dined in the evening, the Merrills had dinner at half-past one in the afternoon, when the girls returned from school.  Mr. Merrill usually came home, but he had gone off somewhere for this particular day, and Mrs. Merrill had a sewing circle.  The girls sat down to dinner alone.  When they got up from the table, Susan suddenly remembered the note which she had left in her coat pocket.  She drew out the clippings with it.

“I wonder what Miss Sadler is sending mamma clippings for,” she said.  “Why, Cynthia, they’re about your uncle.  Look!”

And she handed over the article headed “Jethro Bass.”  Jane, who had quicker intuitions than her sister, would have snatched it from Cynthia’s hand, and it was a long time before Susan forgave herself for her folly.  Thus Miss Sadler had her revenge.