ated his puny muscles to a pitch
which carried him beyond the feeling of any weariness. For himself he
wanted nothing. For Jessie and the twins the world was not great
enough as a possession.

And was she not worth it? Were they not worth it? Look at her, so
splendid! How she bore with him and all his petty, annoying ways! Her
disposition was not of this earth, he told himself. Would any other
woman put up with his ill-humors, his shortcomings? He realized how
very trying he must be to any bright, clever woman. He was not clever,
and he knew it, and it made him pity Jessie for the lot he had brought
her to.

And the twins. Vada was the image of her mother. The big, round, brown
eyes, the soft, childish mouth, the waving brown hair. And Jamie. He
had her eyes, too, and her nose, and her beautiful coloring. What a
mercy of Providence neither of them resembled him. But, then, how
could they, with such a mother? How it delighted him to think that he
was working for them, for her. A thrill of delight swept over him,
and added a spring to his jaded step. What mattered anything else in
the world. He was to give them all that which the world counted as
good. He, alone.

But it was not yet. For a moment a shadow crossed his radiant face as
he toiled up the hill to his hut. It was gone in a moment, however.
How could it stay there with his thought gilded with such high hopes?
It was not yet, but it would come--must come. His purpose was
invincible. He must conquer and wrench this wealth which he demanded
from the bosom of the hard old earth. And then--and then--

"Hello, kiddies," he cried cheerily, as his head rose above the
hilltop and his hut and the two children, playing outside it, came
into his view.

"Pop-pa!" shrieked Vada, dropping a paper full of loose dirt and
stones upon her sprawling brother's back, in her haste to reach her
diminutive parent.

"Uh!" grunted Jamie, scrambling to his feet and tottering heavily in
the same direction.

There was a curious difference in the size and growth of these twins.
Probably it utterly escaped the adoring eyes of their father. He only
saw the reflected glory of their mother in them. Their resemblance to
her was all that really mattered to him, but, as a matter of fact,
this resemblance lay chiefly in Vada. She was like her mother in an
extraordinary degree. She was well-grown, strong, and quite in advance
of her years, in her speech and brightness of intellect. Little Jam