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best to be on the safe side--half a million at the very lowest
calculation, and then your father will give his consent and we can marry
at last. Oh, that will be a glorious day. Tell our friends the good
news--I want all to share it."
And she did tell her father and mother, but they said, let it be kept
still for the present. The careful father also told her to write
Washington and warn him not to speculate with the money, but to wait a
little and advise with one or two wise old heads. She did this. And she
managed to keep the good news to herself, though it would seem that the
most careless observer might have seen by her springing step and her
radiant countenance that some fine piece of good fortune had descended
upon her.
Harry joined the Colonel at Stone's Landing, and that dead place sprang
into sudden life. A swarm of men were hard at work, and the dull air was
filled with the cheery music of labor. Harry had been constituted
engineer-in-general, and he threw the full strength of his powers into
his work. He moved among his hirelings like a king. Authority seemed to
invest him with a new splendor. Col. Sellers, as general superintendent
of a great public enterprise, was all that a mere human being could be
--and more. These two grandees went at their imposing "improvement" with
the air of men who had been charged with the work of altering the
foundations of the globe.
They turned their first attention to straightening the river just above
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