"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.
Not until they reach the center of the town do they realize they are at
the end of their ride.
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