“When are you going to make your fortune, John, and get out of that disagreeable hardware concern?” demanded Di, pausing after an exciting “round,” and looking almost as much exhausted as if it had been a veritable pugilistic encounter.

“I intend to make it by plunging still deeper into ’that disagreeable hardware concern’; for, next year, if the world keeps rolling, and John Lord is alive, he will become a partner, and then—­and then”——­

The color sprang up into the young man’s cheek, his eyes looked out with a sudden shine, and his hand seemed involuntarily to close, as if he saw and seized some invisible delight.

“What will happen then, John?” asked Nan, with a wondering glance.

“I’ll tell you in a year, Nan,—­wait till then.”  And John’s strong hand unclosed, as if the desired good were not to be his yet.

Di looked at him, with a knitting-needle stuck into her hair, saying, like a sarcastic unicorn,—­

“I really thought you had a soul above pots and kettles, but I see you haven’t; and I beg your pardon for the injustice I have done you.”

Not a whit disturbed, John smiled, as if at some mighty pleasant fancy of his own, as he replied,—­

“Thank you, Di; and as a further proof of the utter depravity of my nature, let me tell you that I have the greatest possible respect for those articles of ironmongery.  Some of the happiest hours of my life have been spent in their society; some of my pleasantest associations are connected with them; some of my best lessons have come to me from among them; and when my fortune is made, I intend to show my gratitude by taking three flat-irons rampant for my coat of arms.”

Nan laughed merrily, as she looked at the burns on her hand; but Di elevated the most prominent feature of her brown countenance, and sighed despondingly,—­

“Dear, dear, what a disappointing world this is!  I no sooner build a nice castle in Spain, and settle a smart young knight therein, than down it comes about my ears; and the ungrateful youth, who might fight dragons, if he chose, insists on quenching his energies in a saucepan, and making a Saint Lawrence of himself by wasting his life on a series of gridirons.  Ah, if I were only a man, I would do something better than that, and prove that heroes are not all dead yet.  But, instead of that, I’m only a woman, and must sit rasping my temper with absurdities like this.”  And Di wrestled with her knitting as if it were Fate, and she were paying off the grudge she owed it.

John leaned toward her, saying, with a look that made his plain face handsome,—­