t? to think of a pair
like you two, finding each other in a place like this!"

"It is rather unusual, I admit," said Houston.

"Yes," added Rutherford, "taking into consideration all the
surroundings, and the why and wherefore of your coming here, I think
it borders on the romantic."

A moment later he asked, "Does Miss Gladden know what you are doing
out here?" Houston shook his head, in reply.

"Doesn't she know who you really are?"

"Not yet," Houston answered, "no one out here knows any more about
that than you did two hours ago."

"Whew!" said Rutherford, "she will be slightly surprised when she
finds that old Blaisdell's clerk and bookkeeper has a few cool
millions of his own, won't she?"

"I hope she will not object to the millions," said Houston with a
smile, "but I have the satisfaction of knowing that they were not the
chief attraction; she cares for me myself, and for my own sake, not
for the sake of my wealth, and I am just old fashioned enough to
consider that of first importance."

"And when will she learn your secret? not until the closing scene of
the last act?"

"I cannot tell just when," Houston answered, "that will of course
depend a great deal upon circumstances."

Rutherford then became confidential regarding his own hopes for the
future, and gave Houston a description of his fiancee, and a brief
history of their acquaintance and engagement.

"Grace is all right," he said in conclusion, "but her father is
inclined to be a little old-fogyish, thinks we are too young for any
definite engagement, and wants me to be permanently established in
some business before we are married, and all that; when I can't see
what in the deuce is the difference so long as I have plenty of stuff.
So the upshot of it all was that he and his wife took Grace to Europe,
and they're not coming back until the holidays, and if, by that time,
we have neither of us changed our minds, and I am settled in business
and all that sort of thing, we can be married. There's no danger of
our changing our minds, so that's all right, but I declare I don't see
the use of a fellow's tying himself down to some hum-drum business,
when there's no need of it."

"It isn't a bad idea though to find some business for which you are
adapted, and stick to it," was Houston's reply; "that was the advice
my uncle gave me when I returned from college, and he offered me the
choice of going into business with himself, or selecting something