Lakeside was a pleasant little town of five or six thousand inhabitants, and a rather pretty one, too, as towns go in the Far West. It had church accommodations for thirty−five thousand, which is the way of the Far West and the South, where everybody is religious, and where each of the Protestant sects is represented and has a plant of its own. Rank was unknown in Lakeside−−unconfessed, anyway; everybody knew everybody and his dog, and a sociable friendliness was the prevailing atmosphere. Saladin Foster was book−keeper in the principal store, and the only high−salaried man of his profession in Lakeside. He was thirty−five years old, now; he had served that store for fourteen years; he had begun in his marriage−week at four hundred dollars a year, and had climbed steadily up, a hundred dollars a year, for four years; from that time forth his wage had remained eight hundred−−a handsome figure indeed, and everybody conceded that he was worth it. His wife, Electra, was a capable helpmeet, although−−like himself−− a dreamer of dreams and a private dabbler in romance. The first thing she did, after her marriage−−child as she was, aged only nineteen−− was to buy an acre of ground on the edge of the town, and pay down the cash for it−−twenty−five dollars, all her fortune. Saladin had less, by fifteen. She instituted a vegetable garden there, got it farmed on shares by the nearest neighbor, and made it pay her a hundred per cent. a year. Out of Saladin's first year's wage she put thirty dollars in the savings−bank, sixty out of his second, a hundred out of his third, a hundred and fifty out of his fourth. His wage went to eight hundred a year, then, and meantime two children had arrived and increased the expenses, but she banked two hundred a year from the salary, nevertheless, thenceforth. When she had been married seven years she built and furnished a pretty and comfortable two−thousand−dollar house in the midst of her garden−acre, paid half of the money down and moved her family in. Seven years later she was out of debt and had several hundred dollars out earning its living