that Dick Dayton had had, and look, what chances there were!
Once fairly launched in the stirring, out-of-door Colorado life, his spirits had so far recovered their tone that he could afford to be magnanimous. Accordingly he wrote the following letter to Dorothy:
"Dear Dorothy,
"You were right; I wasn't half good enough for you. No fellow is, as far as that goes! Don't you let them fool you on that score! It makes me mad when I think about it. You always knew the worst of me, but you don't really know the first thing about any other man. I'm coming back next year to try again. Do give me the chance, Dorothy! Remember, I don't tell you you could make anything you like of me—that's the rubbish the rest will talk. I'm going to make something of myself first! And if I don't do it in a year, I am ready to work seven years,—or seventy,—or seventy-seven years; if you'll only have me in the end! That would have to be in Heaven, though, wouldn't it? Well, it would come to the same thing in the end! It would be Heaven for me, wherever it was!"
Wakefield had the habit of saying to Dorothy whatever came into his head; and so he had written his letter without any thought of effect. But the answer he got was so carefully worded that he could make nothing of it. At
