e it from me," said the Tyro modestly, "to enter the lists against
so redoubtable a champion on such short notice. Still, if you _are_
marrying real estate, rather than wealth, intellect, or beauty, I may
mention that I've got an option on that very house, and that it will
cost me pretty much every cent I've made since I left college to pay for
it."

"That you've made? Haven't you got any money of your own?"

"Whose do you suppose the money I've made is?"

"But anything to _live_ on, I mean. Do you have to work?"

"Oh, no. The poorhouse is contiguous and hospitable. But I've always had
a puerile prejudice against pauperdom as a career."

"You know what I mean," she accused. "Haven't your people got money?"

"Enough. And they can use what they have. Why should they waste it on
me?"

"But the men I know don't have to work," said the young lady.

There was nothing patronizing or superior in her tone, but the curiosity
with which she regarded her companion was in itself an irritant.

"Oh, well," he said, "after you've bought an old historic house and
maybe a coat of arms, I dare say you'll come to know some decent
citizens by and by."

"You mustn't think I have any feeling about your working," she explained
magnanimously. "Lots of nice men do. I know that. Only I don't happen
to know them. Young men, I mean. Of course dad works, but that's
different. I suppose Mrs. Denyse told you who dad is."

"She did. But I didn't know any more after she got through telling than
before."

The slanted brows went up to a high pitch of incredulity. "Where in the
world do you live?"

"Why, I've been in the West mostly for some years. My work has kept me
there."

"Oh, your haberdashery isn't in New York?"

"My haber--er--well--no; that is, I don't depend on the--er--trade
entirely. I'm a sort of a kind of a chemist, too."

"In a college?" inquired the young lady, whose impressions of chemistry
as a pursuit were derived chiefly from her schooldays.

"Mainly in mining-camps. Far out of the world. That's why I don't know
who you and your father are."

"Don't you really? Well, never mind us. Tell me more about your work,"
she besought, setting the feminine pitfall--half unconsciously--into
which trapper and prey so often walk hand in hand.

He answered in the words duly made and provided for such occasions: "Not
much to tell," and, as the natural sequence, proceeded to tell it,
encouraged by her interested eyes, at no smal