having to work does? People that have to work hard are usually
honest and have sympathy and affection and try to amount to something.
And if they are bad, why at least they can't hurt anybody but themselves
very much, where a John Dumont or a Skeffington can injure
hundreds--thousands. Take your own case, Mr. Ranger. Your money has never
done you any good. It was your hard work. All your money has ever done
has been--Do you think your boy and girl will be as good a man and woman,
as useful and creditable to the community, as you and Cousin Ellen?"

Hiram said nothing; he continued to slide his great, strong,
useful-looking hands one over the other.

"A fortune makes a man stumble along if he's in the right road, makes him
race along if he's in the wrong road," concluded Henrietta.

"You must have been talking a great deal to young Hargrave lately," said
Hiram shrewdly.

She blushed. "That's true," she admitted, with a laugh. "But I'm not
altogether parroting what he said. I do my own thinking." She rose. "I'm
afraid I haven't cheered you up much."

"I'm glad you came," replied Hiram earnestly; then, with an
admiring look, "It's a pity some of the men of your family haven't
got your energy."

She laughed. "They have," said she. "Every one of us is a first-rate
talker--and that's all the energy I've got--energy to wag my tongue.
Still--You didn't know I'd gone into business?"

"Business?"

"That is, I'm backing Stella Wilmot in opening a little shop--to sell
millinery."

"A Wilmot at work!" exclaimed Hiram.

"A Wilmot at work," affirmed Henrietta. "She's more like her great
grandfather; you know how a bad trait will skip several generations and
then show again. The Wilmots have been cultivating the commonness of work
out of their blood for three generations, but it has burst in again. She
made a declaration of independence last week. She told the family she
was tired of being a pauper and beggar. And when I heard she wanted to do
something I offered to go in with her in a business. She's got a lot of
taste in trimming hats. She certainly has had experience enough."

"She always looks well," said Hiram.

"And you'd wonder at it, if you were a woman and knew what she's had to
work on. So I took four hundred dollars grandfather sent me as a birthday
present, and we're going to open up in a small way. She's to put her name
out--my family won't let me put mine out, too. 'Wilmot & Hastings' would
sound well, don