In his simple mind he saw wonderful visions of all that final discovery. He dreamt of the day when he should be able to install his beautiful Jessie in one of those up-town palaces in New York; when an army of servants should anticipate her every desire; when the twins should be launched upon the finest academies the country possessed, to gorge their young minds to the full with all that which the minds of the children of earth's most fortunate must be stored. He saw his Jessie clad in gowns which displayed and enhanced all those beauties with which his devoted mind endowed her. She should not only be his queen, but the queen of a social world, which, to his mind, had no rival. And the happiness of such dreams was beyond compare. His labor became the work of a love which stimulated his puny muscles to a pitch which carried him beyond the feeling of any weariness. For himself he wanted nothing. For Jessie and the twins the world was not great enough as a possession. And was she not worth it? Were they not worth it? Look at her, so splendid! How she bore with him and all his petty, annoying ways! Her disposition was not of this earth, he told himself. Would any other woman put up with his ill-humors, his shortcomings? He realized how very trying he must be to any bright, clever woman. He was not clever, and he knew it, and it made him pity Jessie for the lot he had brought her to. And the twins. Vada was the image of her mother. The big, round, brown eyes, the soft, childish mouth, the waving brown hair. And Jamie. He had her eyes, too, and her nose, and her beautiful coloring. What a mercy of Providence neither of them resembled him. But, then, how could they, with such a mother? How it delighted him to think that he was working for them, for her. A thrill of delight swept over him, and added a spring to his jaded step. What mattered anything else in the world. He was to give them all that which the world counted as good. He, alone. But it was not yet. For a moment a shadow crossed his radiant face as he toiled up the hill to his hut. It was gone in a moment, however. How could it stay there with his thought gilded with such high hopes? It was not yet, but it would come--must come. His purpose was invincible. He must conquer and wrench this wealth which he demanded from the bosom of the hard old earth. And then--and then-- "Hello, kiddies," he cried cheerily, as his head rose above the hilltop and his hut and the two children, playing outside it, came into his view. "Pop-pa!" shrieked Vada, dropping a paper full of loose dirt and stones upon her sprawling brother's back, in her haste to reach her diminutive parent. "Uh!" grunted Jamie, scrambling to his feet and tottering heavily in the same direction.