ned. She says--"

"Richard, I"--

"My dear, you shall tell your story afterwards, and I promise to listen
without a word until you are finished. Mrs. Field says that if I had
understood her nature as a man ought to understand the girl he has been
thinking about for several years, I should have known she cared nothing
about my income."

"I didn't care! I'd have"--but Mr. Field checked her outburst.

"She was going to say," said Mr. Field, "that had I asked her to marry
me when I became sure that I wished to marry her, she would have been
willing to leave New York and go to the waste land in Michigan that was
her inheritance from a grandfather, and there build a cabin and live in
it with me; and that while I shot prairie chickens for dinner she would
have milked the cow which some member of the family would have been
willing to give us as a wedding present instead of a statue of the
Winged Victory, or silver spoons and forks, had we so desired."

Richard made a pause here, and looked at his wife as if he expected her
to correct him. But Ethel was plainly satisfied with his statement, and
he therefore continued.

"I think it is ideal when a girl is ready to do so much as that for a
man. But I should not think it ideal in a man to allow the girl he
loved to do it for him. Nor did I then know anything about the lands
in Michigan--though this would have made no difference. Ethel had been
accustomed to a house several stories high, with hot and cold water in
most of them, and somebody to answer the door-bell."

"The door-bell!" exclaimed Ethel. "I could have gone without hearing
that."

"Yes, Ethel, only to hear the welkin ring would have been enough for
you. I know that you are sincere in thinking so. And the ringing welkin
is all we should have heard in Michigan. But the more truly a man loves
a girl, the less can he bear taking her from an easy to a hard life. I
am sure that all the men here agree with me."

There was a murmur and a nod from the men, and also from Mrs. Davenport.
But the other ladies gave no sign of assenting to Richard's proposition.

"In those days," said he, "I was what in the curt parlance of the street
is termed a six-hundred-dollar clerk. And though my ears had grown
accustomed to this appellation, I never came to feel that it completely
described me. In passing Tiffany's window twice each day (for my
habit was to walk to and from Nassau Street) I remember that seeing a
thousand-dollar clo