d the sheets face down across his knee, laid his hand
on them, and stared meditatively at the lake. "'Friend,'" he commented.
"Well, that's all right! I am her friend, as well as I know how to be.
'Lover.' I come in there, full force. I did my level best on that score,
though I can't boast myself a howling success; a man can't do more
than he knows, and if I had been familiar with all the wiles of expert,
professional love-makers, they wouldn't have availed me in the Girl's
condition. I had a mighty peculiar case to handle in her, and not a
particle of training. But if she says 'Lover,' I must have made some
kind of a showing on the job. 'Husband.'" A slow flush crept up the
brawny neck and tinged the bronzed face. "That's a good word," said
the Harvester, "and it must mean a wonderful thing----to some men. 'Who
bides his time.' Well, I'm 'biding,' and if my time ever comes to be my
Dream Girl's husband, I'll wager all I'm worth on one thing. I'll study
the job from every point of the compass, and I'll see what showing I can
make on being the kind of a husband that a woman clings to and loves at
eighty."

Taking a deep breath the Harvester lifted the letter, and laying one
hand on Belshazzar's head, he proceeded----"I might as well admit in the
beginning that I cried most of the way here. Some of it was because I
was nervous and dreaded the people I would meet, and more on account of
what I felt toward them, but most of it was because I did not want to
leave you. I have been spoiled dreadfully! You have taught me so to
depend on you----and for once I feel that I really can claim to have
been an apt pupil----that it was like having the heart torn out of me to
come. I want you to know this, because it will teach you that I have
a little bit of appreciation of how good you are to me, and to all the
world as well. I am glad that I almost cried myself sick over leaving
you. I wish now I just had stood up in the car, and roared like a burned
baby.

"But all the tears I shed in fear of grandfather and grandmother were
wasted. They are a couple of dear old people, and it would have been a
crime to allow them to suffer more than they must of necessity. It all
seems so different when they talk; and when I see the home, luxuries,
and friends my mother had, it appears utterly incomprehensible that she
dared leave them for a stranger. Probably the reason she did was because
she was grandfather's daughter. He is gentle and tender so