don't mind telling
me, how you got rich?"

"But bless you, young man," exclaimed Mr. Dassonville, "I'm not rich."

This for a beginning, was, on the face of it, disconcerting. Peter
looked about at the rows of books, at the thick, soft carpet and the
leather-covered furniture, and at the rings on Mrs. Dassonville's hand.
If Mr. Dassonville were not rich, how then--unless----

"I beg your pardon, sir, but I thought--that is, everybody says you are
the richest man in these parts."

"As to that, well, perhaps, I have a little more money than my
neighbours."

Peter breathed relief. The beautiful Mrs. Dassonville's rings were paid
for, then.

"But as to being _rich_, why, when you come to a really rich man all
I've got wouldn't be a pinch to him." Mr. Dassonville illustrated with
his own thumb and fingers how little that would be. "We don't have
really rich men in a place like Harmony," he concluded. "You have to go
to the city for that."

"You've got everything you want, haven't you?"

Mr. Dassonville looked over at his wife, and the smile bloomed again; he
smiled quietly to himself as he admitted it. "Yes, I've got everything I
want."

They were quiet, all of them, for a little while, with Peter turning his
hat over in his hands and Mr. Dassonville laying the tips of his fingers
together before him, resting his elbows on the arms of the chair.

"I wish," said Peter at last, "you would tell me how you did it."

"How I got more money than my neighbours? Well, I wasn't born with it."

This was distinctly encouraging. Neither was Peter.

"No two men, I suppose, make money in the same way," went on the man who
had, "but there are three or four things to be observed by all of them.
In the first place one must be very hard-working."

"Yes," said Peter.

"And one must never lose sight of the object worked for. Not"--as if he
had followed the boy's inward drop of dismay--"that a man should think
of nothing but getting money. On the contrary, I consider it very
essential for a man to have some escape from his business, some change
of pasture to run his mind in. He comes fresher to his work so. What I
mean is that _when_ he works he must make every stroke count toward the
end he has in view. Do you understand?"

"I think so." The House and the Shining Walls were safe, at any rate.

"And then," Mr. Dassonville checked off the points on his fingers, "he
must always save something from his income, no matter how sma