learned in watching deer runways, so he stared straight before him,
and spat with a certain periodicity into the centre of the aisle.
The younger stretched back lazily in an attitude of ease which spoke
of the habit of travelling. Sometimes he smoked a pipe. Thrice he
read over a letter. It was from his sister, and announced her
arrival at the little rural village in which he had made arrangements
for her to stay. "It is interesting,--now," she wrote, "though the
resources do not look as though they would wear well. I am learning
under Mrs. Renwick to sweep and dust and bake and stew and do a
multitude of other things which I always vaguely supposed came
ready-made. I like it; but after I have learned it all, I do not
believe the practise will appeal to me much. However, I can stand
it well enough for a year or two or three, for I am young; and then
you will have made your everlasting fortune, of course."

Harry Thorpe experienced a glow of pride each time he read this
part of the letter. He liked the frankness of the lack of pretence;
he admired the penetration and self-analysis which had taught her
the truth that, although learning a new thing is always interesting,
the practising of an old one is monotonous. And her pluck appealed
to him. It is not easy for a girl to step from the position of
mistress of servants to that of helping about the housework of a
small family in a small town for the sake of the home to be found
in it.

"She's a trump!" said Thorpe to himself, "and she shall have
her everlasting fortune, if there's such a thing in the country."

He jingled the three dollars and sixty cents in his pocket, and
smiled. That was the extent of his everlasting fortune at present.