gance--a
thousand dollars. Sally kissed her half a dozen times and even in that
way could not express all his joy and thankfulness. This new access
of gratitude and affection carried Aleck quite beyond the bounds of
prudence, and before she could restrain herself she had made her darling
another grant--a couple of thousand out of the fifty or sixty which she
meant to clear within a year of the twenty which still remained of the
bequest. The happy tears sprang to Sally's eyes, and he said:

"Oh, I want to hug you!" And he did it. Then he got his notes and sat
down and began to check off, for first purchase, the luxuries which
he should earliest wish to secure.
"Horse--buggy--cutter--lap-robe--patent-leathers--dog--plug-hat--
church-pew--stem-winder--new teeth--SAY, Aleck!"

"Well?"

"Ciphering away, aren't you? That's right. Have you got the twenty
thousand invested yet?"

"No, there's no hurry about that; I must look around first, and think."

"But you are ciphering; what's it about?"

"Why, I have to find work for the thirty thousand that comes out of the
coal, haven't I?"

"Scott, what a head! I never thought of that. How are you getting along?
Where have you arrived?"

"Not very far--two years or three. I've turned it over twice; once in
oil and once in wheat."

"Why, Aleck, it's splendid! How does it aggregate?"

"I think--well, to be on the safe side, about a hundred and eighty
thousand clear, though it will probably be more."

"My! isn't it wonderful? By gracious! luck has come our way at last,
after all the hard sledding, Aleck!"

"Well?"

"I'm going to cash in a whole three hundred on the missionaries--what
real right have we care for expenses!"

"You couldn't do a nobler thing, dear; and it's just like your generous
nature, you unselfish boy."

The praise made Sally poignantly happy, but he was fair and just enough
to say it was rightfully due to Aleck rather than to himself, since but
for her he should never have had the money.

Then they went up to bed, and in their delirium of bliss they forgot and
left the candle burning in the parlor. They did not remember until they
were undressed; then Sally was for letting it burn; he said they could
afford it, if it was a thousand. But Aleck went down and put it out.

A good job, too; for on her way back she hit on a scheme that would turn
the hundred and eighty thousand into half a million before it had had
time to get cold.

CHAPTER III