o put your generosity to another test.
I ought to have gone away and made things easier for you; I ought to
have waited, to save your pride, but it would have been too hard.
Well, I'm taking a horribly wrong line, but I want you, and you know me
for what I am. If you think I'm too mean, I'll sell Langrigg and go
away for good."

Carrie got up and looked at him with steady eyes. Then her face
softened and she gave him a tender smile.

"You are rather foolish, Jim, but you mean well and I am satisfied."

He stood still for a moment, as if he doubted what he had heard, and
she said quietly, "If my pride needed saving, it would be very small."

"My dear!" he said, and took her in his arms.

A few minutes afterwards, Jake and Mrs. Winter came in and Jim
remarked: "You have owned you like the Old Country and I've urged you
to stay."

"When the dykes are finished we must go," Mrs. Winter replied. "You
are kind, but we know where we belong----"

She stopped and looked sharply at Carrie, who stood by Jim and smiled.
Her color was high and her face and pale-green dress cut against the
background of somber oak. Her pose was graceful but proud. Jim
remembered her coming down the stairs on her first evening in the
house; she had looked like that then. Somehow one felt she was there
by right.

"If you go, you must leave me," she said. "I belong to Langrigg and
Jim."

Mrs. Winter advanced and kissed her and Jake gave Jim his hand. "For a
time, it looked as if we were going to lose you, partner. Still I felt
you would come back to us."

"I don't know if I've come back or gone forward," Jim rejoined. "All
that's important is, Carrie and I go on together."

For half an hour they engaged in happy talk and when, after dinner,
Carrie and Jim were again alone, she said, "You have forgotten
something. Oughtn't we to tell Bernard?"

"Of course," Jim agreed. "Somehow I think he'd like it if you wrote
the note."

Carrie sent him for a pen and soon after he came back fastened and gave
him the envelope.

"I suppose I ought to feel nervous, but I don't," she said. "I was
never afraid of Bernard."

Next evening Bernard came to dinner. Jim and his party met him in the
hall, but he signed the others back when Carrie gave him her hand.

"I am the head of the house and claim my right," he said and kissed
her. "Some day Jim will take my place and I think he will fill it
well."

Carrie blushed, but Jim noted with a t