because--it couldn't be so. I am as
poor as a gopher almost, and she is a heiress. Don't you realize that it's
utterly unbecoming for any one of your years to talk so lightly of these
matters."

Aline laughed mischievously. "Are you so old and wise already, Ralph?" she
asked. "Brotherly superiority won't go very far with a girl who has earned
her own living. As you say, I should not have told you this, but you must
have been blinder than a mole--even your uncle saw it, and I am quite
right." She looked me over critically before she continued, as though
puzzled: "I really cannot see why she should be so, and I begin to fancy
that a little plain speaking will be good for my elder brother."

I checked the exclamation just in time, and stared at her while I
struggled with a feeling of shame and dismay. It was not that I had chosen
Grace, but it was borne in on me forcibly that besides wounding the
feelings of the two persons to whom I owed a heavy debt of gratitude, I
must more than once, in mock heroic fashion, have made a stupendous fool
of myself. Such knowledge was not pleasant, though perhaps the draught was
beneficial, and if plain speaking of that kind were wholesome there was
more in store, for hardship had not destroyed Aline's inquisitorial
curiosity, nor her fondness for comments, which, if winged with mischief,
had truth in them. Thus, to avoid dangerous subjects, I confined my
conversation to my partners and railroad building.

"That is really interesting," she vouchsafed at length. "Ralph, you
haven't sense enough to understand women; but axes, horses, and engines,
you know thoroughly. I'm quite anxious to see this Harry, and wonder
whether I could tame him. Young men are always so proud of themselves,
and one finds amusement in bringing them to a due sense of their
shortcomings, though I am sorry to say they are not always grateful."

Then I laughed as I fancied the keen swordplay of badinage that would
follow before she overcame either Johnston or Harry, if they ever met, and
I almost wondered at her. This slip of a girl--for after all, she was
still little more--had faced what must have been with her tastes a
sufficiently trying lot, but it had not abated one jot of her somewhat
caustic natural gaiety, and there was clearly truth in my partner's
saying: "One need not take everything too seriously."

When with some misgivings I showed Aline her room she pointed out several
radical defects that needed imm