you think, Wade? I've tried to puzzle
it out, and this is the conclusion I've come to. Is it rather
cold-blooded? I know it isn't at all like the lovemaking in the books. I
suppose I ought to go and fling myself at her feet, in defiance of all
the decencies and amenities and obligations of life, but somehow I can't
bring myself to do it. I've thought it all conscientiously over, and I
think I ought to wait."

"I think so, too, Matt. I think your decision is a just man's, and it's
a true lover's, too. It does your heart as much honor as your head," and
Wade gave him his hand now, with no mental reservation.

"Do you really think so, Caryl? That makes me very happy! I was afraid
it might look calculating and self-interested--"

"You self-interested, Matt!"

"Oh, I know! But is it considering my duty too much, my love too little?
If I love her, hasn't she the first claim upon me, before father and
mother, brother and sister, before all the world?"

"If you are sure she loves you, yes."

Matt laughed. "Ah, that's true; I hadn't thought of that little
condition! Perhaps it changes the whole situation. Well, I must go, now.
I've just run over from the farm to see you--"

"I inferred that from your peasant garb," said Wade, with a smile at the
rough farm suit Matt had on: his face refined it and made it look mildly
improbable. "Besides," said Wade, as if the notion he recurred to were
immediately relevant to Matt's dress, "unless you are perfectly sure of
yourself beyond any chance of change, you owe it to her as well as
yourself, to take time before speaking."

"I am perfectly sure, and I shall never change," said Matt, with a shade
of displeasure at the suggestion. "If there were nothing but that I
should not take a moment of time." He relented and smiled again, in
adding, "But I have decided now, and I shall wait. And I'm very much
obliged to you, old fellow, for talking the matter over with me, and
helping me to see it in the right light."

"Oh, my dear Matt!" said Wade, in deprecation.

"Yes. And oh, by the way! I've got hold of a young fellow that I think
you could do something for, Wade. Do you happen to remember the article
on the defalcation in the _Boston Abstract_?"

"Yes, I do remember that. Didn't it treat the matter, if I recall it,
very humanely--too humanely, perhaps?"

"Perhaps, from one point of view, too humanely. Well, it's the writer of
that article--a young fellow, not twenty-five, yet as c