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.
Earning it by the rise in landed estate; for she had long ago bought another acre or two
and sold the most of it at a profit to pleasant people who were willing to build, and would
be good neighbors and furnish a general comradeship for herself and her growing family.
She had an independent income from safe investments of about a hundred dollars a year;
her children were growing in years and grace; and she was a pleased and happy woman.
Happy in her husband, happy in her children, and the husband and the children were
happy in her. It is at this point that this history begins.
The youngest girl, Clytemnestra--called Clytie for short-- was eleven; her sister,
Gwendolen--called Gwen for short-- was thirteen; nice girls, and comely. The names
betray the latent romance-tinge in the parental blood, the parents' names indicate that the
tinge was an inheritance. It was an affectionate family, hence all four of its members had
