"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.
"We never rode those five miles so quickly before," says Ethel.
"O, yes we have. Why, it has taken us longer to-day than ever," Harvey replies, as he looks at his watch.
"But of course it has not seemed long. We have had so much to talk about. We must make good time on the ride home or we will be late for dinner."
They turn their horses and are off at a brisk trot back toward
Wilkes-Barre.
On passing through the upper end of Woodward they have not noticed a clump of men and women standing at the doorway of a miserable hovel, setting back from the road.