nor the womanhood that alone has made it possible?

But while Richard Temple knew that there was never a murmur at her lot
in Mary's heart any more than there was complaining upon her lips, he
knew also how earnestly she longed for a better place in the world for
him, how intensely ambitious she was that he should find fit opportunity
and make the most of it in the way of winning that recognition at the
hands of men which her loving soul knew to be his right and his due.

It was with gladness, therefore, that he had gone to her after midnight
with his news. It was with joy that he had wakened her out of her sleep
and told her of the good that had come to him.

She wept as she sat there on the side of her bed and listened while the
moonlight, sifting through the vines that she had trained up over the
window of the miner's hut, cast a soft fleecy veil over her person, in
which Temple thought an angel might rejoice. But her tears were not born
of sorrow. They were tears of exceeding joy, and if a drop or two
slipped in sympathy from the strong man's eyes and trickled down his
cheeks, he had no cause to be ashamed.

When he re-entered the company's office, Temple stood for a moment,
unable to control the emotion he had brought away from Mary's bedside.
When at last he regained mastery of himself, he took Duncan's hand and,
pressing it warmly, delivered Mary's message:

"Mary bids me say, God bless you, Guilford Duncan. She bids me say that
two weeks ago to-night a son was born to us; that he has been nameless
hitherto; but that to-night, before I left, she took him from his cradle
and named him Guilford Duncan Temple."

It is very hard for two American men to meet an emotional situation with
propriety. They cannot embrace each other as women, and Frenchmen, and
Germans do, and weep; a handclasp is all of demonstration that they
permit themselves. For the rest, they are under bond to propriety to
maintain as commonplace and as unruffled a front as stoicism can
command. So, after Guilford Duncan had choked out the words: "Thank you,
old fellow, and thank Mary," he turned to the table, pushed forward the
pipes and tobacco, and said:

"Let's have a smoke."

* * * * *

"Now tell me the rest of it," said Duncan, after the pipes were set
going. "About the mine, I mean."

"Well, it all seems simple. There are two hundred and seventy blind
mules in the mine----"

"Blind? What do you mean?"