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178 Mr. Lindsay would agree to it, or for wages, if he would not. In the former alternative he would be able to prove that he could be his own master; and if he did well for a year he would speak to Mr. Lindsay, and if he then could trust him with Jessie they might be married. By that time he believed he would be as fond of Jessie as she herself could wish.

Hugh Lindsay was satisfied with George's handsome apology, and more than satisfied with it. If he had had any difference with any one he was always very strongly convinced that he was in the right, only it was seldom the other party had the grace to own it. It was scarcely in human nature at least it was not in Hugh Lindsay's nature to help chuckling over Mr. Hammond's disappointment when his arrangement with Copeland fell through; so when George proposed to take the station on shares he agreed to it readily, and offered more liberal terms than Copeland thought he deserved.

"Writing to your friends and listening to that capital sermon of Mr. McCroskey's has done you good, George, and brought you to reason; and now I'll hear the end of the good wife's lamentations about Gundabook. Clever woman as she is and sensible in most things, Mrs. Lindsay hasn't the enterprising spirit that a man needs to