ships, catching
fish or ploughing furrows in God's green earth? Out of my darkness I
stammered, "Principal industries, agriculture and fish-building--"

"That will _do_, Calvin! You may remain after school to-night." I had
never less liked the way she said this, as if it were a boon at which I
would snatch, instead of a penalty imposed.

Solon Denney followed me, glibly enumerating the industries of a great
and busy state. But I could not listen. Phantom-like in my poor mind
floated a wordless conviction that, however it might once have been, the
state would immediately abandon its industries now that she had come
away from it. I beheld its considerable area desolated, the forges cold,
the hammers stilled, the fields overgrown, the ships rotting at their
docks, the stalwart mechanics drooping idly above their unfinished
tasks. It was not possible to suppose that any one could feel, in a
state which she had left, that interest which good work demands.

My disgrace brought me respite for fresh adventure. I was let alone. The
world could still be peopled; even Solon Denney might survive a little
time, for another picture in the same geography now reproduced itself in
my inflamed mind--the picture of a South Sea island, a sandy beach with
a few indolent natives lolling, negligent of tasks, in the shade of
cocoanut palms. Here, on the outer reef, I wrecked an excellent
steamship. Over the rail sprang a stalwart lad, not out of his teens,
with a lovely golden-haired girl in his arms. With strong, swift
strokes, he struck out for the beach, notwithstanding his burden. The
other passengers, a hazy and quite uninteresting lot, quickly went down;
all save one, a coarse, swaggering youth with too much self-possession
whom I need not name. He, too, sprang over the rail, but, nearing the
beach, a justly enraged providence intervened and he was bitten neatly
in two by a famished and adroit shark.

With some interest I watched his blood stain the lucid green waters, but
it was soon over. Then I bore my fainting burden to the dry sands and
revived her with cocoanut milk and breadfruit, while the natives crowded
respectfully about and made us their king and queen on the spot. We
lived there forever. How flat of sound were it to say that we lived
happily!

And yet I doubt if Solon Denney ever suspected me of aspiring to be his
rival. She, I think, knew it full well, in the way her sex knows matters
not communicated by act or word of