yth admitted.
"Still, the inference is so flattering that one would naturally feel a
little diffident about believing that Martial's suppositions were
correct."

"That," replied Mrs. Acton, "was tactfully expressed." She looked at
the young man fixedly, and her next remark was characterized by the
disconcerting frankness which is not unusual in the West. "Mr.
Nasmyth," she said, "unless you have considerable means of your own,
it would be wiser of you to put any ideas of the kind you have hinted
at right out of your head."

"I might, perhaps, ask you for one or two reasons why I should adopt
the course you suggest."

"You shall have them. Violet Hamilton is a lady with possessions, and
I look upon her as a ward of my own. Any way, her father and mother
are dead, and they were my dearest friends."

"Ah," agreed Nasmyth, "that naturally renders caution advisable. Well,
I am in possession of three or four hundred dollars, and a project
which I would like to believe may result to my advantage financially.
Still, that is a thing I cannot be very sure about."

Mrs. Acton gazed at him thoughtfully. "Your uncle is a man of means."

"I believe he is. He may put three or four thousand dollars into the
venture I mention, if he continues pleased with me. That is, I think,
the most I could expect from him."

Mrs. Acton sat silent a while, and, though Nasmyth was not aware of
it, favoured him with one or two glances of careful scrutiny. He was,
as she had naturally noticed, a well-favoured man, and the flannels
and straw hat he wore were becoming to him. What was more to the
purpose, there was a certain graceful easiness in his voice and manner
which were not characteristic of most of her husband's friends.
Indeed, well-bred poise was not a characteristic of her own, though
she recognized her lack. The polish that she coveted suggested an
acquaintance with a world that she had not as yet succeeded in
persuading her husband to enter. Acton was, from her point of view,
regrettably contented with his commercial status in the new and
crudely vigorous West.

"Well," she remarked thoughtfully, "none of us knows what there is in
the future, and there are signs that you have intelligence and grit in
you." Then she dismissed the subject. "I think you might take me for a
row," she said.

Nasmyth pulled the dinghy alongside, and rowed her up and down the
bay, but his intelligence was, after all, not sufficient for him to
recognize