don't quite seem to have
got everything properly laid out in my mind."

"You just take your own good time, Eilie. I have my career to make
first; but I am going to do it now that I have you to think of----"

"That's the way I like to hear a man talk," she returned, with an
enthusiasm that carried contagion. "I don't think there is a thing in
this world impossible to any man if he only makes up his mind to
attain it. If a man has health--and he can have that if he goes about
it the right way--and is willing to throw aside the hundred and one
little time-wasters that surround all of us; if he will work and work
and do the very best he knows, he is sure to gain his object in the
end."

"Even in the winning of a young lady?"

"Yes!--even in that," she answered. "Why,--you can see that happen
every day. Men whom young ladies actually repulse at first, often
attract these same ladies in the end by their devotion, determination
and singleness of purpose, and they gain the love they seek in the
end, too."

"But that must just be destiny."

"I don't know. If you mean by destiny, that if a man strives all that
is in him to attain a laudable object or ambition, and allows of no
permanent rebuffs, but comes back at it, again and again--the result
is absolutely certain and he need have no worry as to the ultimate
success, because it is up to him to use and develop his talent, but
the result is with his Creator who first gave him his talent to work
on and first prompted his ambition for the materially hidden but
ultimate good of the Universe--then I agree with you:--it is
destiny."

After she spoke, Phil and she glided on in silence, for both felt
somehow that they had been verging on a new understanding, as it
were--a sixth sense--a tuning up and a telepathic communication with
the Infinite.

Tears started in Eileen's eyes which Phil did his best to banish.

"Oh,--I know I am foolish," she said. "Sometimes I feel so strong; at
other times so--so feminine. It is my dear, old daddy I worry over,
Phil. He is not what he used to be before he got mixed up with this
political crowd, with Mayor Brenchfield, with all these land schemes
he has afoot. He used to be just my dear old daddy: now I seem to be
losing him. That--that is why I have insisted on going with him to
Victoria."

"I am sorry--very, very sorry, Eileen! If I could help, I would,
gladly. Brenchfield I know is far from straight. He is educated,
wealthy, influen