bygones, for it was easy enough to be generous
in the hour of his triumph.

"He had it in him," one-time sceptics admitted.

"Blood will tell," declared his supporters emphatically and there was
now no dissenting voice to the oft-repeated aphorism.

Symes moved among his satellites with that benign unbending which is a
recognized attribute of the truly great. The large and opulent air which
formerly he had assumed when most in need of credit was now habitual,
but his patronage was regarded as a favor; indeed the Crowheart
Mercantile Company considered it the longest step in its career when the
commissary of the Symes Irrigation Company owed it nearly $7000.

Conditions changed rapidly in Crowheart once work actually began. The
call for laborers brought a new and strange class of people to its
streets--swarthy, chattering persons with long backs, and short legs, of
frugal habits, yet, after all, leaving much silver in the town on the
Saturday night which followed payday.

Symes's domestic life was moving as smoothly and as satisfactorily as
his business affairs. A lifetime seemed to lie between that memorable
journey on the "Main Line" with Augusta in her brown basque and dreadful
hat, and the present. She was improving wonderfully. He had to admit
that. "No, sir," he told himself occasionally, "Augusta isn't half bad."
Her unconcealed adoration and devotion to himself had awakened affection
in return, at least her gaucheries no longer exasperated him and they
were daily growing less. Dr. Harpe had been right when she had told him
that Augusta was as imitative as a parrot, and he often smiled to
himself at her affectations, directly traceable to her diligent perusal
of _The Ladies' Own_ and the column devoted to the queries of troubled
social aspirants. While it amused him he approved, for an imitation lady
was better than the frankly impossible girl he had married. Something of
this was in his mind while engaged one day in the absorbing occupation
of buttoning Mrs. Symes's blouse up the back.

He raised his head at the sound of a step on the narrow porch.

"Who's that?"

"Dr. Harpe."

"What--again?"

There was a suspicion of irritation in his voice, for now that he came
to think of it, he and Augusta had not dined alone a single evening that
week.

"What of it? Do you mind, Phidias?"

"Oh, no; only isn't she crowding the mourners a little? Isn't she rather
regular?"

"I asked her," Mrs. Symes replied u