slam it very loudly, you know!--and know it is you going
out to your work. It makes me feel so lazy, because I am supposed to do
half an hour's practising before nine o'clock breakfast, and I do feel
it such a penance."

Miles laughed shortly.

"Did you ever see me coming back?" he inquired, and when Cynthia nodded,
with a twinkle in her eye--"Betty was afraid you would believe I was a
_real_ workman," he told her. "She thought you would put us down as
quite impossible people, having a workman living in the house!"

"Betty is a goose," said Betty's new friend cheerily, "but she is a nice
goose. I like her. I guessed you were learning to be an engineer,
because I have a cousin who did the same. I like a man to do manly
work. I suppose you are dreadfully interested in all those noisy
engines and things. Tell me about them."

It was rather a large order, and Miles would have answered shortly
enough if an ordinary acquaintance had put such a question, but there
was a magnetism about Cynthia which broke down reserve, and to his own
astonishment he found himself answering quite easily and naturally.

"I am not studying for railway engineering--I am going in for mines.
It's a different course altogether, and in some ways much more
difficult. There seems nothing that a mining engineer ought not to
know--assaying, and surveying, and everything to do with minerals, and,
of course, a thorough understanding of pumps, and all the machinery
employed. Then he ought to know something about doctoring, and even
cooking, if he wants to be an all-round success, for ten to one he will
be sent to some out-of-the-way wilderness where there is no one else to
look after the comfort of his men--"

"Is that what you intend to do? Go and bury yourself at the end of the
world?"

"I expect so--any time after the next six months. I shall have finished
my course by that time, and be on the look-out for the first opening
that comes!"

"What will Betty do without you?"

Betty's brother shrugged his shoulders with the unconcern with which, it
is to be feared, most lads regard their sisters' feelings.

"Oh, she'll get used to it! It's no use sticking at home if one wants
to get on in the world. I should never be content to jog along in a
secondary position all my life, as some fellows do. I don't care how
hard I work, but I mean to get to the very top of the tree!"

"Wish I'd been born a boy! It must be delicious to rough it i