favoured the match and had often spoken of it. Indeed, Ryder
desired it, for such an alliance would naturally further his
business interests in every way. Roberts knew that his daughter
Kate had more than a liking for Ryder's handsome young son.
Moreover, Kate was practical, like her father, and had sense
enough to realize what it would mean to be the mistress of the
Ryder fortune. No, Kate was all right, but there was young Ryder
to reckon with. It would take two in this case to make a bargain.

Jefferson Ryder was, in truth, an entirely different man from his
father. It was difficult to realize that both had sprung from the
same stock. A college-bred boy with all the advantages his
father's wealth could give him, he had inherited from the parent
only those characteristics which would have made him successful
even if born poor--activity, pluck, application, dogged obstinacy,
alert mentality. To these qualities he added what his father
sorely lacked--a high notion of honour, a keen sense of right and
wrong. He had the honest man's contempt for meanness of any
description, and he had little patience with the lax so-called
business morals of the day. For him a dishonourable or dishonest
action could have no apologist, and he could see no difference
between the crime of the hungry wretch who stole a loaf of bread
and the coal baron who systematically robbed both his employes and
the public. In fact, had he been on the bench he would probably
have acquitted the human derelict who, in despair, had
appropriated the prime necessary of life, and sent the over-fed,
conscienceless coal baron to jail.

"Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." This simple
and fundamental axiom Jefferson Ryder had adopted early in life,