ey enough for my son and my son's wife.
But he's all the boy I have, and I don't want him to make a mistake."

"Neither do I," she answered, simply, her eyes suffused with tears. "If I
thought he would be sorry--"

He interrupted again. "Oh, you can't tell that now. Any marriage is a
risk. I don't say he's making a mistake in selecting you. You may be just
the woman he needs. Only I want to be consulted. I want to know more
about you. He tells me you have taken an active part in the management of
the ranch and the forest. Is that true?"

"I've always worked with my father--yes, sir."

"You like that kind of life?"

"I don't know much about any other kind. Yes, I like it. But I've had
enough of it. I'm willing to change."

"Well, how about city life--housekeeping and all that?"

"So long as I am with Wayland I sha'n't mind what I do or where I live."

"At the same time you figure he's going to have a large income, I
suppose? He's told you of his rich father, hasn't he?"

Berrie's tone was a shade resentful of his insinuation. "He has never
said much about his family one way or another. He only said you wanted
him to go into business in Chicago, and that he wanted to do something
else. Of course, I could see by his ways and the clothes he wore that
he'd been brought up in what we'd call luxury, but we never inquired into
his affairs."

"And you didn't care?"

"Well, not that, exactly. But money don't count for as much with us in
the valley as it does in the East. Wayland seemed so kind of sick and
lonesome, and I felt sorry for him the first time I saw him. I felt like
mothering him. And then his way of talking, of looking at things was so
new and beautiful to me I couldn't help caring for him. I had never met
any one like him. I thought he was a 'lunger'--"

"A what?"

"A consumptive; that is, I did at first. And it bothered me. It seemed
terrible that any one so fine should be condemned like that--and so--I
did all I could to help him, to make him happy. I thought he hadn't long
to live. Everything he said and did was wonderful to me, like poetry and
music. And then when he began to grow stronger and I saw that he was
going to get well, and Cliff went on the rampage and showed the yellow
streak, and I gave him back his ring--I didn't know even then how much
Wayland meant to me. But on our trip over the Range I understood. He
meant everything to me. He made Cliff seem like a savage, and I wanted
him to kn