height, forms a secondary or subordinate axis from which
the watershed falls to the Atlantic."

He was speaking very quietly but earnestly. No man had
ever spoken to her like this before.

"What a wonderful picture!" she murmured half to herself,
half aloud, and half not aloud and half not to herself.

"Through the whole of it," de Vere went on, "there run
railways, most of them from east to west, though a few
run from west to east. The Pennsylvania system alone
has twenty-one thousand miles of track."

"Twenty-one thousand miles," she repeated; already she
felt her will strangely subordinate to his.

He was holding her hand firmly clasped in his and looking
into her face.

"Dare I tell you," he whispered, "how many employees it
has?"

"Yes," she gasped, unable to resist.

"A hundred and fourteen thousand," he said.

There was silence. They were both thinking. Presently
she spoke, timidly.