ey," she declared. "My father and those men are
sitting there and building plans to bring them thousands and thousands
of dollars. All they need to do is put their heads together and plan.
Every now and then I hear a few words. They're going to own all the
steamboats--or something of that kind. Anybody can make money, I say,
but there are so few who know how to enjoy it."

"I have been doing a lot of thinking since last night--Alma." He
hesitated when he came to her name, and then blurted it out.

"Do you think it is real lover-like to treat my name as if it were a
hurdle that you must leap over?" she asked, with her aggravating little
chuckle. "Oh, you have so much to learn!"

"I'm afraid so. I have a great many things ahead of me to learn and do.
I have been thinking. I have been afraid of the men who sit and scheme
and put all their minds on making money. They did bitter things to us,
and we didn't understand until it was all over. But I must go among them
and watch them and learn how to make money."

"Don't be like the others, now, and talk money--money," she said,
pettishly. "Money and their love-affairs--that's the talk I have heard
from men ever since I was allowed to come into the drawing-room out of
the nursery!"

"But I must talk money a little, dear. I have my way to make in the
world."

"Thrifty, practical, and Yankee!" she jested. "I suppose you can't help
it!"

"It isn't for myself--it's for you!" he returned, wistfully, and with
a voice and demeanor he offered himself as Love's sacrifice before
her--the old story of utter devotion--the ancient sacrifice.

"I have all I want," she insisted.

"But _I_ must be able to give you what you want!"

"I warn you that I hate money-grubbers! They haven't a spark of romance
in them. Boyd, you'd be like all the rest in a little while. You mustn't
do it."

"But I must have position--means before I dare to go to your father--if
I ever shall be able to go to him!"

"Go to him for what?"

"To ask him--to say--to--well, when we feel that I'm in a position where
we can be married--"

"Of course we shall be married some day, boy, but all that will take
care of itself when the time comes. But now you are-- How old are you,
Boyd?"

"Twenty-six."

"And I am nineteen. And what has marriage to do with the love we are
enjoying right now?"

"When folks are in love they want to get married."

"Granted! But when lovers are wise they will treat romance at first