fellows, with less
intellect than you have, are in the cities, in the mining fields and on
the prairies, battling with the world for power and fortune and
getting, some of them, what they are battling for.

"I am not trying to probe into your privacy, but what I have put into
words has often recurred to me regarding you. Somehow, you seem to
have all the qualities that go to the making of a really successful
business man."

"Do you really wonder why?" I smiled. "--And yet you profess to know
me--a little."

It was an evening for closer friendships.

"If you promise for the future to call me George and permit me the
privilege, when we are alone, of calling you Mary, I shall answer your
query."

"All right,--George,--it's a bargain," she said. "Go ahead."

"Well! in the first place, I know what money is; what it can bring and
what it can cause. I never cared for money any more than what could
provide the plain necessities of life. As for ambition to make and
accumulate money;--God forbid that I should ever have it. I leave such
ambitions to the grubs and leeches."

Mary listened in undisguised interest.

"Oh! I have had opportunities galore, but I always preferred the
simpler way,--the open air, the sea and the quiet, the adventure of the
day and the rest after a day well spent.

"No man can eat more than three square meals a day and be happy; no man
can lie upon more than one bed at a time;--so, what right have I, or
any other man for the matter of that, to steal some other fellow's food
and bedding?"

"But some day you may wish to marry," she put in.

"Some day,--yes! maybe. And the lady I marry must also love the open
air, away from the city turmoil; she must hanker after the glories of a
place such as this; otherwise, we should not agree for long.

"And,--Mary,--" I continued, "the man you would marry,--what would you
demand of him?"

"The man I would marry may be a Merchant Prince or a humble tiller of
the soil. A few things only I would demand of him, and these
are:--that he love me with all his great loving heart; that he be
honourable in all things and that his right arm be strong to protect
his own and ever ready to assist his weaker brother.

"Marriages may be made in heaven, George, but they have to be lived on
earth, and the one essential thing in every marriage is love."

She sat for a while in thought, then she threw out her hands as if to
ward off a danger.

"Of what use me ta