nt he was incapable of speech, standing mute, her warm hand in
his.

"It's been a dream," he managed at last. "Just like a dream! Now you
belong to me, don't you?"

"Sure, if you want to put it that way," said Pearl "Come on! there's the
music again."

At the door she was taken from him by the audacious mill foreman.
Wilbur was chilled. Pearl had instantly recovered her public, or
ballroom, manner. Could it be that she had not been rightly uplifted by
the greatness of their moment? Did she realize all it would mean to
them? But she was meltingly tender when at last they swayed in the waltz
to "Home, Sweet Home." And it was he who bore her off under the witching
moon to the side entrance of the Mansion. They lingered a moment in the
protecting shadows. Pearl was chatty--not sufficiently impressed, it
seemed to him, with the sweet gravity of this crisis.

"We're engaged now," he reminded her. Pearl laughed lightly.

"Have it your own way, kid! Wha'd you say your name was?"

She kissed him again. Then he wandered off in the mystic night, far over
a world reeling through golden moonshine, to reach his dark but glowing
little room at an hour that would have disquieted Winona. It was the
following day that he cheered her by displaying a new attention to his
apparel, and it was before the ensuing Friday night dance that he had
submitted his hands to her for embellishment--talking casually of love
at first sight.

There followed for him a time of fearful delight, not unmarred by spells
of troubled wonder. Pearl was not exclusively enough his. She danced
with other men; she chatted with them as with her peers. She seemed even
to encourage their advances. He would have preferred that she found
these repulsive, but she continued gay, even hard, under his chiding.

"Tut, tut! I been told I got an awfully feminine nature. A girl of my
type is bound to have gentleman friends," she protested.

He aged under this strain. He saw now that he must abandon his easy view
about his future. He must, indeed, plan his life. He must choose his
vocation, follow it grimly, with one end in view. Pearl must become his
in the sight abandon his easy view about his future. He must, indeed,
plan his life. He must choose his vocation, follow it grimly, with one
end in view. Pearl must become his in the sight of God and
man--especially man--with the least delay. He delighted Sam Pickering by
continuing steadily at the linotype for five consecuti