des, as I haven't been born to it, my conscience might trouble me
if I had to shoot my enemies and rob the worthy merchants. I had
better stick to digging holes in the ground. That is all I seem to be
good for."

Hope looked up at him, quickly, in surprise.

"What do you mean by that?" she demanded. There was a tone of such
sharp reproach in her voice that Clay felt himself put on the defensive.

"I mean nothing by it," he said. "Your sister and I had a talk the
other day about a man's making the best of himself, and it opened my
eyes to--to many things. It was a very healthy lesson."

"It could not have been a very healthy lesson," Hope replied, severely,
"if it makes you speak of your work slightingly, as you did then. That
didn't sound at all natural, or like you. It sounded like Alice. Tell
me, did Alice say that?"

The pleasure of hearing Hope take his part against himself was so
comforting to Clay that he hesitated in answering in order to enjoy it
the longer. Her enthusiasm touched him deeply, and he wondered if she
were enthusiastic because she was young, or because she was sure she
was right, and that he was in the wrong.

"It started this way," Clay began, carefully. He was anxious to be
quite fair to Miss Langham, but he found it difficult to give her point
of view correctly, while he was hungering for a word that would
re-establish him in his own good opinion. "Your sister said she did
not think very much of what I had done, but she explained kindly that
she hoped for better things from me. But what troubles me is, that I
will never do anything much better or very different in kind from the
work I have done lately, and so I am a bit discouraged about it in
consequence. You see," said Clay, "when I come to die, and they ask me
what I have done with my ten fingers, I suppose I will have to say,
'Well, I built such and such railroads, and I dug up so many tons of
ore, and opened new countries, and helped make other men rich.' I
can't urge in my behalf that I happen to have been so fortunate as to
have gained the good-will of yourself or your sister. That is quite
reason enough to me, perhaps, for having lived, but it might not appeal
to them. I want to feel that I have accomplished something outside of
myself--something that will remain after I go. Even if it is only a
breakwater or a patent coupling. When I am dead it will not matter to
any one what I personally was, whether I was a bore o