am mad with delight; when I touch you I am in
heaven. When I close my eyes before the jury I see you and I put the
bliss of my vision into my voice, and," he clinched his hands, "all the
devils of hell couldn't win that jury away from me. You spur me to my
best, put springs in every muscle, put power in my blood."

"But, Tom, tell me this?" Still wistfully, she came close to him, and
put her chin on her clasped hands that rested on his shoulder. "Love
makes me want to be so good, so loyal, so brave, so kind--isn't it that
way with you? Isn't love the miracle that brings the soul out into the
world through the senses." She did not wait for his answer. She clasped
her hands tighter on his shoulder. "I feel that I'm literally stealing
when I have a single thought that I do not bring to you. In every thrill
of my heart about the humblest thing, I find joy in knowing that we
shall enjoy it together. Let me tell you something. Grant Adams and his
father were here to-day for dinner. Well, you know Grant is in a kind of
obsession of love for that little motherless child Mrs. Adams left;
Grant mothers him and fathers him and literally loves him to
distraction. And Grant's growing so manly, and so loyal and so strong in
the love of that little boy--he doesn't realize it; but I can see it in
him. Oh, Tom, can you see it in me?"

Before her mood had changed she told him all that Grant Adams had said;
and her voice broke when she retold the Italian's story. Tears were in
her eyes when she finished. And young Mr. Van Dorn was emotionally
touched also, but not in sympathy with the story the girl was telling.
She ended it:

"And then I looked at Grant's big rough hands--bony and hairy, and Tom,
they told me the whole story of his destiny; just as your soft,
effective, gentle white hands prophesy our destiny. Oh, why--why--I am
beginning to wonder why, Tom, why things must be so. Why do some of us
have to do all the world's rough, hard, soul-killing work, and others of
us have lives that are beautiful, aspiring, glorious? How can we let
such injustices be, and not try to undo them!"

In his face an indignation was rising which she could not comprehend.
Finally he found words to say:

"So that's what that Adams boy is putting in your head! Why do you want
to bother with such nonsense?"

But the girl stopped him: "Tom, it's not nonsense. They do work and dig
and grind down there in a way which we up here know nothing about. It's
re