the sun was shining just outside, he'd keep on
beating at the wall."

"Your life is not a jail cell. It's very comfortable, I
think."

"It has been bare enough. I have had a hard fight to
live at all. I told you that I began as a canal-boy."

She looked at him with quick sympathy. At once she
fancied that she could read old marks of want on his
face. His knuckles were knobbed like a laborer's. He
had had a hard fight! It certainly would be pleasant to
rain down comfort and luxury on the good, plucky fellow!

"Of course that was all long ago," said Perry. "I'm not
ashamed of it. As Judge Baker remarked the other day,
`The acknowledged aristocrats of America, to-day, are its
self-made men.' He ought to know. The Bakers are the
top of the heap in New York. Very exclusive. I've been
intimate there for years. No, Miss Dunbar, I may have
begun as a mule-driver on a canal, but I am choice in my
society. My wife will not find a man or woman in my
circle who is half-cut."

Lucy drew a long breath. To live all day and every day
with this man!

And yet--she was so tired! There was a good deal of
money to manage, and he could do that. He would like a