poker out on the under side and against the hearth with a force that
bent its glowing point.

"The stew's done," he said. "We'll dish up now."

This little scene, or rather the conversation that seasoned the stew,
soon faded from Randolph's memory, but it lingered in the mind of his
companion. Men like the latter, little given to speech, are apt to
turn and re-turn in thought what has been said to them, and therefore
do not easily forget.

Several weeks after this the two men sat on the bachelor hearth once
more; Loveland in his usual quiet mood and Chance smarting from a
recent wound. He had begun to feel that his position was almost secure
with Miss Leigh, but that day, on the occasion of a picnic at which he
had amused himself by trifling with a silly young girl, he was amazed,
mortified, and hurt by receiving the cold shoulder when he proffered
his company to Miss Leigh on the way home.

His friend's hospitable hearth had more than once proven a refuge and
a solace. It was so to-night, and Randolph began to take heart again
as he settled back in his comfortable chair in the ingle-nook and
watched the hanging of the oyster stew upon the crane.

For a time the gentle simmering of the appetizing dish was the only
sound to be heard. Randolph did not feel like talking or even
listening, and his companion knew how to hold his peace.

Steve Loveland was one of those men whose intuitive sense is as fine
as a woman's; of delicate physique, strong brain, and a sensitive
temperament that might have gone off on a morbid tangent but for the
common sense, cheerfulness, and unselfishness that held it true to the
course. The last man in the world to lead a lonely life, but there was
an invalid mother and a delicate sister in a pretty little country
town home some two hundred miles away, and that was why Steve had no
home of his own. Loving nature as I think most men of fine, sensitive
fiber do, yearning for wife, and children, and hearthstone, as every
good man must, he had cheerfully and forever put one side all hope of
fulfilling these holy dreams and had taken his place on the force of a
daily paper, never thinking he was a hero. His comrades never thought
of that, either; they only knew that he was always pleasant, always
considerate, always every inch a man, and they loved him with one
accord.

It was to such a friend as this that Randolph had given his heart, for
although he did not fully understand him, he loved him