ple to the world? Why, you're as spoiled as the rest of
us!" cried Bessie.

"Quite true, Cousin, but with this difference, I realize that fact and
the rest of you do not."

"What a charming pedestal you have placed yourself upon, Jack," said
Blanch, seating herself beside Mrs. Forest.

"Perhaps," returned the Captain dryly, "but of one thing I am certain.
Few people are better prepared to speak on this matter than I am."

"What an interesting lot we women must be in your eyes," broke in
Bessie, digressing from the subject. Captain Forest smiled.

"Don't misunderstand me," he went on. "You are trumps, every one of you,
if you only knew it, but unfortunately you do not. You are the most
attractive women in the world, but you are spoiled--utterly spoiled. You
are the well-groomed, lovely curled and pampered darlings of society,
but alas! utterly superficial, just like those brilliant women of the
great French revolutionary period."

"I admire your frankness, Jack; but what do you really intend doing?
What sort of a life do you intend to lead?" asked Blanch.

"Cease chasing will-o'-the-wisps about in the vain pursuit of happiness,
and live as man was intended to live by substituting nature's realities
for man's creations; those things which we prize most--which please for
a time, but which in the end leave us as empty handed as the day we
first started in quest of the _golden fleece_. Live as close as possible
to nature; cultivate the soil, watch the fruit and the flowers and the
grain grow, and roam throughout the length and breadth of the land when
the longing seizes me."

"What!" cried the Colonel, unable to contain himself any longer. "Is
this the inane, prosaic existence for which you have given up one of the
most brilliant careers the world had to offer a man? It's bad enough to
have wrecked that, but for one possessing the wealth you do to waste his
life after such fashion; it's simply disgusting! Think of what you might
do in the financial world!"

"That's just the sort of answer one might expect from you," replied the
Captain, taking a fresh pull at his cigarette. "You talk like a
stockbroker. That phase of labor brings no real happiness to any one.
Besides, it would be absurd for one possessing the money I do to spend
his days earning more. Of course as things are constituted to-day, it is
difficult to get along without money, but in reality I don't consider it
has anything to do with happiness. Lasting