f his running the place. He'd undoubtedly
run us into the ground the first year. I've thought it over and thought
it over, and the only course seems to me to be to find a buyer for the
place. Money isn't easy just now, and I've no doubt we'd have a hard time
to get a decent price. Meanwhile it seems to me only common sense to get
what income we can out of it. If I could sell that big pine grove, and
cut off what timber is ready for the axe up here, it would bring us
something quite substantial."

Now this certainly was a presentation of the case which called for a
considerate listening. But, quite as if she had not heard a word of his
argument, Josephine cried out:

"Max, why not do what Mr. Ferry proposed, if you think the house can't be
lived in? Put up a tent in the grove and bring Sally there as soon as
she's fit for it. She'd get strong twice as fast as in that stuffy flat!"

Max gazed at her. "That's just what you get," he ejaculated, "when you
try to talk business with a girl. Show her a good and sufficient reason
why you can't do a thing, and she instantly asks why you can't do
something ten times harder. Will you tell me how, with Sally out here in
a tent, we fellows are going to get along in the flat? And what would she
do out here, all by herself?"

It was now Josephine's turn to gaze with scorn at her companion. "Do you
think I'm proposing for Sally to camp by herself out here, while Mary Ann
Flinders keeps house for you in town? No; bring Mary Ann out here to cook
for Sally, and you boys come out for the nights. If you had a bit of camp
spirit, you'd jump at the chance to get a real outing right along with
your work."

"Camp," exclaimed Max, "in your own front yard!"

"The pine grove isn't your front yard, and the farther end of it is so
far away from the road, nobody could tell who was who, back there.
Besides, what difference, if Sally gets strong again as fast as out-door
life can make her?"

"It's not practical," Max continued to object, and Josephine realized
afresh that the Lane temperament was not one easily swayed by argument or
appeal. There was a stubborn streak in Max which was as hard to deal with
now as it had been in the days when Josephine had fought it out with him
in playground affairs. Yet she did not lose hope. She had known Max to
come round, if left to himself, convinced in the end by logic derived
from his own consideration of the case. If he could once see a course as
fair and