(seq. 15)

would be years before he could offer her a home as good as
her father's and he knew her well enough to see that she was
ambitious & not contented with the one she had so she would
not be likely to be willing to share a poorer one. Then he himself
could
was not approach her ideal he knew. She [blunt?] unchipped
refinement & was educated above those around her. She must
marry with a higher class not a lower, What chance was there
of her caring for him. He must not even wish her to care for
him. And then there were others who might easily be con-
sidered suitors of hers, there was Ned who frankly said that
she was the only girl who had any special interest for him & he
felt sure that Mr. Saunders regarded her with something more
than ordinary liking. These thoughts & others like them
kept coming to him through the night & still he could not
say to himself it israther could not make himself act as though it were
truly hopeless & impossible. Meantime May had told her
adventure & been scolded for her carelessness & rejoiced over for
her escape. But she had time to think little about it for her
father had something to tell of interest to them all. A young
man had come into his office that day to get work From the
[course?] of the talk it had appeared that he was interested
in an invention he had been planning & which he was
trying to get money enough to have patented. He had
described his idea to Mr Stone & his bookkeeper who was