xpectedly she
reached her hand down to him. He took it in his firm clasp. "I do
care--an awful lot," she said, "but I've tried not to. And I shouldn't
let you care for me."

"Why--shouldn't?"

"I'm not--half good enough. My life has always been lived at loose
ends. Nothing bad, but a thousand things that you wouldn't--like to
hear--I'm not a golden girl--I'm a gilded one----"

"Why should you tell me things like that? I don't believe it."

"Please believe it," she said earnestly, "don't whitewash things. Just
let me begin again--loving you----"

Her voice broke. He drew himself up, and took her in his arms. "My
dear girl," he said, "my dear girl----"

"I never met a man like you, I never believed there were--such men----"
He felt her tears against his hand.

"Listen," he said quietly; "let me tell you something of my life." He
told her the things he had told Randy. Of the little wife he had not
loved. "Perhaps if it had not been for her, I should not have had the
courage to offer to you my--maimed--self. When I married her I was
strong and young and had wealth to give her. Yet I did not give her
love. And love is more than all the rest. I have that to give
you--you know it."

"Yes."

"I have some money. I don't think it is going to count much with
either of us. What will count is the way we plan our future. I have a
big old ranch, and we'll live in it--with the dairy and the wide
kitchen that you've talked about--and you won't have to wait for
another world, dearest, to get your heart's desire----"

"I have my heart's desire," she whispered; "you are--my world."

II

Madge wrote to George Dalton that she was going to marry Major Prime.

"There is no reason why we should put it off; Georgie. The clergyman
who prayed for Flora will perform the ceremony, and the wedding will be
at the Flippins' farm.

"It seems, of course, too good to be true. Not many women have such
luck. Not my kind of women anyway. We meet men as a rule who want us
to be gilded girls, and not golden ones. But Mark wants me to be gold
all through. And I shall try to be---- We are to live on his ranch, a
place that passes in California for a farm--a sort of glorified country
place. Mrs. Flippin is teaching me to make butter, so that I can
superintend my own dairy, and I have learned a great deal about
chickens and eggs.

"I am going to be a housewife in what I call a reincarnated
sense--loving my house