“Then we will join you at dinner,” says Harvey, as he walks towards the door.

At the curb in front of the entrance of the office building, a groom stands holding the bridles of three magnificent hunters.

Harvey assists Ethel to her saddle and springs on to his horse.  “Take Nero back to the stables,” Harvey instructs the groom.  “Mr. Purdy will not use him this afternoon.”

The riders are soon out on the turnpike that leads to Woodward.  For a November afternoon, the weather is delightful.  The prospects of a bracing canter over the mountain roads could not be brighter.  The high color on the cheeks of Harvey and Ethel show that they are not strangers to outdoor exercise.  Indeed they are types of perfect physical condition.

Since the day Harvey Trueman became the attorney of the Paradise Coal Company, and the protege of Gorman Purdy, the young couple have been constant companions.  They have been encouraged to seek each other’s company by Mr. Purdy, who appreciated the worth of Harvey and who secretly hoped that the brilliant young lawyer would become one of his household.

“I have spoken to your father,” Harvey says, as the horses climb slowly up one of the rough hills on the pike.  “He has given his consent to our engagement.”

“He’s such a dear, good fellow, I knew he would not stand in the light of making me happy!” exclaims Ethel.

“Tell me all he said?” she inquires eagerly.

“He told me that he was glad you thought enough of me to wish to have me as your partner in life; that he had never had but one fear that you might fall in love with some worthless snob, who would make you unhappy and seek only the fortune which you would bring him.

“Your father was kind enough to say that he believed I would continue to be attentive to my business, and to his interests.  What do you think he is going to give you as a marriage dot?”

“Don’t make me guess.  You know I am never able to guess a riddle.”

“He is going to present you with his new villa at Newport.”

“How could he have known that I was wishing for just that one thing?  O, won’t it be jolly to go there and spend our honeymoon,” Ethel exclaims gleefully.

“We will make your father come there and spend the summer.  He really must take better care of his health.”

Discussing the details of their cloudless future, the lovers enter the dingy mining town of Woodward.  The weather-beaten cottages, which never have known a coat of paint, do not attract their attention.  The groups of ragged children playing in the dusty road, scurry out of the path of the horses.  On the hillside to the left stands the Jumbo Breaker, the largest coal crusher in the world.  Its rambling walls rise to a height of several hundred feet up a steep incline.  The noise of the machinery within can be heard distinctly from the roadway.  The grind, grind, grind of the mammoth crushers, which sound as a perpetual monotone to the townspeople, is lost on the ears of Ethel and Harvey.