ng and pulling--and he's got to keep fighting, trying to
satisfy it--and he can't wait to pick his ground or his weapons."

"And Victor Dorn," said Jane, to make it clearer to her father by
putting his implied thought into words, "Victor Dorn is doing the best
he can--fighting on the only ground that offers and with the only
weapons he can lay hands on."

The old man nodded. "I never have blamed him--not really," declared
he. "A practical man--a man that's been through things--he understands
how these things are," in the tone of a philosopher. "Yes, I reckon
Victor's doing the best he can--getting up by the only ladder he's got
a chance at."

"The way to get him off that ladder is to give him another," said Jane.

A long silence, the girl letting her father thresh the matter out in
his slow, thorough way. Finally her young impatience conquered her
restraint. "Well--what do you think, popsy?" inquired she.

"That I've got about as smart a gel as there is in Remsen City,"
replied he.

"Don't lay it on too thick," laughed she.

He understood why she was laughing, though he did not show it. He knew
what his much-traveled daughter thought of Remsen City, but he held to
his own provincial opinion, nevertheless. Nor, perhaps, was he so far
wrong as she believed. A cross section of human society, taken almost
anywhere, will reveal about the same quantity of brain, and the quality
of the mill is the thing, not of the material it may happen to be
grinding.

She understood that his remark was his way of letting her know that he
had taken her suggestion under advisement. This meant that she had
said enough. And Jane Hastings had made herself an adept in the art of
handling her father--an accomplishment she could by no means have
achieved had she not loved him; it is only when a woman deeply and
strongly loves a man that she can learn to influence him, for only love
can put the necessary sensitiveness into the nerves with which moods
and prejudices and whims and such subtle uncertainties can be felt out.

The next day but one, coming out on the front veranda a few minutes
before lunch time she was startled rather than surprised to see Victor
Dorn seated on a wicker sofa, hat off and gaze wandering delightedly
over the extensive view of the beautiful farming country round Remsen
City. She paused in the doorway to take advantage of the chance to
look at him when he was off his guard. Certainly that profile view of