ture
strength. Yesterday I drove down Grand Street and looked up at that
Trimmer and Company sign, and so long as that is there, Bobby, I could
not feel right about our deserting the colors, as it were; that is,
unless you have definitely given up the fight."

"Given up!" repeated Bobby quickly. "Why, I have just begun. I've been
to school all this time, Agnes, and to a hard school, but now I'm sure
I have learned my lesson. I have won a fight or two; I have had the
taste of blood; I'm going after more; I'm going to win."

"I'm sure that you will," she repeated. "Think how much better
satisfied we will be after you have done so."

"Yes, but think, too, of the time it will take," he protested. "First
of all I must earn money; that is, I must make the _Bulletin_ pay. I
can do that. It is on the edge of earning its way right now, but I owe
twenty-five thousand dollars. It is going to take a long, long time
for me to win this battle, and in it I need you."

"I am always right here, Bobby," she reminded him. "I have never
failed you when you needed me, have I? But maybe it won't take so
long. You say you are going to make the _Bulletin_ pay. If you do that
counts for a business success, enough to release you on that side. But
really, Bobby, how difficult a task would it be to get back control of
your father's store?"

"Hopeless, just now," said he.

"How much money would it take?"

"Well, not so very much in comparison with the business itself," he
told her. "I own two hundred and sixty thousand dollars' worth of
stock, Trimmer owns two hundred and forty thousand, while sixty
thousand more are scattered among his relatives and dependents. That
stock is not for sale, that is the trouble; but if I could buy
twenty-one thousand dollars of it I could do what I liked with the
entire concern."

"Then Bobby, let's not think of anything else but how to get that
stock. Let's insist on having that for our wedding present."

Bobby regarded her gravely for a long time.

"Agnes, you're a brick!" he finally concluded. "You're right, as you
have always been. We'll wait. But you don't know, oh, you don't know
how hard that is for me!"

"It is not the easiest thing in the world for me," she gently reminded
him.

From the time that she had laid her hands in his he had held them, and
now he had gathered them to him, pressing them upon his breast.
Suddenly, overcome by his great longing for her, he clasped her in his
arms and h