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362 " Don't yer think it 'ould be a pootty good mix if Mark Stanley's 'cuteness an' Dubb's idees o' right an' wrong could be rolled all up in one man?"

"The thought does you credit, Droopy. The combination would, indeed, be good. No woman, though, would ever love him, his person is so forbidding and uncouth."

"Well, mebbe that is somethin' what some other men might envy in 'im," said Droopy, bitterly.

Tom Morris laughed.

" Perhaps, Droopy, perhaps. There is one woman who ought to fall in love with him, if she ever finds out what he has done for her; and that, of course, is Mark Stanley's wife."

Twon't do her no good ef she does," muttered Droopy: "she never'll be nothin' but Mark Stanley's wife ter him. He says he wants ter take Mark Stanley's claim, here, an' work it, though Mark couldn't git nothin' outen it. I reckon it's 'cause he thinks Mark Stanley never gits deep enough in anything ter touch bottom."

"It's my belief," said Tom Morris, "that Dubb wants Mark Stanley's claim because Dubb is fond of Mark Stanley."

There was in Mark Stanley's belt, when he left the Red Mountain mines, enough dust to keep him in comfort for a year, provided that he exercised due economy. This permitted him to reflect upon his past life, lay plans for the future, and employ the present in making a thorough scrutiny into the new, free, and, to him, almost incomprehensible life which surrounded him. When he fell in with Miss Maydew, she, being informed by Judge Desborough that Mark was short of money, insisted upon his accepting as a present a liberal sum from her. He declined this as a gift, but expressed his willingness to receive it as a loan. As it amounted to several thousands of dollars, his future was now reasonably secure for a number of years.

Thus protected so far as actual necessities were concerned, he devoted himself to pondering upon what he considered the vagaries and the probabilities of life. Two of his mother's favorite aphorisms, "Virtue has its reward," and "Be sure your sin will find you out," had been constantly dinned into his ears through all his childhood and youth. These two sayings, more than anything else, had given form and complexion to his Vermont life. The promise and the threat about equally determined the course of his steps, and he had no doubt that both would be exemplified and illustrated in everything which he did. Consequently, when he aroused himself from the negative somnolence of his earlier days and decided to enter into matrimony and the rest of the serious business of life, he watched, naturally, on every hand, for the fulfilment of what he had accepted as the two great laws of life. By this means his lines of thought were not only narrowed, but he was, practically, prevented from thinking at all. He dared do nothing but keep his mind fixed upon these two principles and shrink from the awful consequences of going against them. But when he had