And yet, the dough-like Fopling, at that moment in the library with Bess, would have fought Richard to the death on a simple issue that Bess was Dorothy's beauteous superior; which, so far from proving that love is blind, shows it to have the eyes of Argus. Richard and Dorothy said a thousand loving things, and meant them; they made a thousand loving compacts, and kept them all. Suddenly Richard burst forth as though a momentous and usual ceremony had been overlooked. "Oh, ho!" cried he, "you haven't asked how I am to support a wife." "And do you suppose I have been thinking of that?" returned Dorothy, beginning to bridle. "For that matter, I know you are poor." "And how did you dig that up?" "Dig!" This with the utmost resentment, as though repelling a slander. "Why, you told mamma and me yourself. It was the day she was rude and asked if Mr. Gwynn would make you his heir." "Surely," said Richard, grinning cheerfully, as if a puzzle had been made plain, "so I did." "Sweetheart, I loved you from that moment!" cried Dorothy; and with a half-sob to be company for the caress, she drifted about Richard's neck. "Now I should call poverty worth while!" said Richard, manfully kissing Dorothy all over again, since she had come within his clutch. Then, replacing her in her chair, the more readily because he reflected that he might easily repossess himself of her, he continued: "And the prospect of being a poor man's wife does not alarm you, darling?" "Oh, Richard!" Then, looking him squarely in the eyes: "No, dear, it does not alarm me." Dorothy spoke truth. The prospect of being a poor man's wife alarms no woman--before marriage. Richard was in a whirl when he left the Marklin door. Bess fairly drove him forth, or he might not have departed at all. The first shadows of night were falling, but the whole world seemed bright as noonday. He was stricken of vague surprise to observe a man running by him, torch in hand, lighting the street lamps. Controlling his astonishment, Richard greeted the man as though they were old friends. They were not old friends, and the effect of Richard's greeting was to lead the man of lamps to think him drunk. "Got his load early!" quoth the one of lamps. He tippled himself, and was versed in cup proprieties, which forbade drunkenness prior to ten o'clock.