he thing seems rather small. I'm sure I couldn't get it on."

"It can fit only the one it was made for," said Miriam, gravely. "And
if you wanted to find the gold, you would trust to your science, rather
than to this."

"Well, gold-hunting is not in my line, at present. Every nugget has been
paid for more than once, before it is found. Besides, there is something
better than gold in Southern California,--something worth any labor to
get."

"What is it?" asked Miriam, turning her tranquil regard upon him.

Harvey Freeman had never been deficient in audacity. But, standing in
the dark radiance of this maiden's eyes, his self-assurance dwindled,
and he could not bring himself to say to her what he would have said to
any other pretty woman he had ever met. For he felt that great pride and
passion were concealed beneath that tranquil surface: it was a nature
that might give everything to love, and would never pardon any frivolous
parody thereof. Freeman had been acquainted with Miriam scarcely two
days, but he had already begun to perceive the main indications of a
character which a lifetime might not be long enough wholly to explore.
Marriage had never been among the enterprises he had, in the course of
his career, proposed to himself: he did not propose it now: yet he dared
not risk the utterance of a word that would lead Miriam to look at him
with an offended or contemptuous glance. It was not that she was, from
the merely physical point of view, transcendently beautiful. His first
impression of her, indeed, had been that she was merely an unusually
good example of a type by no means rare in that region. But ere long
he became sensible of a spiritual quality in her which lifted her to a
level far above that which can be attained by mere harmony of features
and proportions. Beneath the outward aspect lay a profound depth of
being, glimpses of which were occasionally discernible through her eyes,
in the tones of her voice, in her smile, in unconscious movements of
her hands and limbs. Demonstrative she could never be; but she could,
at will, feel with tropical intensity, and act with the swiftness and
energy of a fanatic.

In Miriam's company, Freeman forgot every one save her,--even
himself,--though she certainly made no effort to attract him or (beyond
the commonplaces of courtesy) to interest him. Consequently he had
become entirely oblivious of the existence of such a person as Grace
Parsloe, when, much to his irri