long ago."

I think he would have continued, but that I broke in: "But I love her, and
she trusts me. Ever since I came to this country I have been fighting my
way upward with this one object in view. We are both young, sir, and I
shall not always be poor--" but here he stopped me with a gesture,
repeating dryly, "I am sorry for you."

He paced the long room twice before he again turned toward me, saying with
a tone of authority, "Sit down there. I am not in the habit of explaining
my motives, but I will make an exception now. My daughter has been brought
up luxuriously, as far as circumstances permitted, and in her case they
permitted it in a measure even on the prairie--I arranged it so. She has
scarcely had a wish I could not gratify, and at Carrington Manor her word
was law. I need hardly say she ordered wisely."

I bent my head in token of comprehension and agreement as the speaker
paused, and then, with a different and incisive inflection, he continued:

"And what would her life be with you? A constant battle with hardship and
penury on a little prairie farm, where with her own hands she must bake
and wash and sew for you, or, even worse, a lonely waiting in some poor
lodging while you were away months together railroad building. Is this the
lot you would propose for her? Now, and there is no reason I should
explain why, after my death there will be little left her besides an
expensive and occasionally unprofitable farm, and so I have had otherwise
to provide for her future!"

"There are, however, two things you take for granted," I interposed again;
"that I shall never have much to offer her--and in this I hope you may be
wrong--and Miss Carrington's acquiescence in your plans."

The old grim smile flickered in the Colonel's eyes as he answered: "Miss
Carrington will respect her father's wishes--she has never failed to do so
hitherto--and I do not know that there is much to be made out of such
railroad contracts as your present one."

This was certainly true enough, and I winced under the allusion before I
made a last appeal.

"Then suppose, sir, that after all fortune favored me, and there was some
reason why what you look for failed to come about--all human expectation,
human life itself, is uncertain--would you then withhold your consent?"

He looked at me keenly a moment, saying nothing, and it was always
unpleasant to withstand the semi-ironical gaze of Colonel Carrington,
though I had noticed a sli