n who
profit from that work, living in the same coop. It expands, and goes
on, and grows, on that basis. It's the laborer, living on his hire,
and the manufacturer living on the laborer's productions, coming in
daily contact. The contrast is too great, the space is too small.
Somebody is going to get the life crowded out of him at every turn, and
it isn't always the work hand in the factory. The money kings eat each
other for breakfast every day. As for work, we always thought we
worked. You should take a peep into the shops and factories I've seen
this week. Work? Why, we don't know what work is, and we waste enough
food every day to keep a workman's family, and we're dressed liked
queens, in comparison with them right now."

"Do you mean to say if he asks you--?" It was a small explosion.

"I mean to say if he asks me, 'buy me that two hundred acres of land
where I want it, build me the house and barns I want, and guarantee
that I may live there as I please, and I'll marry you to-morrow.' If
it's Chicago--Never! I haven't stolen, murdered, or betrayed, who
should I be imprisoned?"

"Why, you hopeless anarchist!" said Nancy Ellen, "I am going to tell
John Jardine on you."

"Do!" urged Kate. "Sound him on the land question. It's our only hope
of a common foundation. Have you send Agatha word that we will be out
this afternoon?"

"I have," said Nancy Ellen. "And I don't doubt that now, even now, she
is in the kitchen--how would she put it?"

"'Compounding a cake,'" said Kate, "while Adam is in the cellar
'freezing a custard.' Adam, 3d, will be raking the yard afresh and
Susan will be sweeping the walks steadily from now until they sight us
coming down the road. What you bet Agatha asked John his intentions?
I almost wish she would," she added. "He has some, but there is a
string to them in some way, and I can't just make out where, or why it
is."

"Not even a guess?" asked Nancy Ellen.

"Not even a guess, with any sense to it. I've thought it was coming
repeatedly; but I've got a stubborn Bates streak, and I won't lift a
finger to help him. He'll speak up, loud and plain, or there will be
no 'connubial bliss' for us, as Agatha says. I think he has ideas
about other things than freight train gear. According to his programme
we must have so much time to become acquainted, I must see his home and
people, he must see mine. If there's more after that, I'm not
informed. Like as not there is. It