may come after we get back
to-night, I can't say."

"Have you told him--?" asked Nancy Ellen.

"Not the details, but the essentials. He knows that I can't go home.
It came up one day in talking about land. I guess they had thought
before, that my people were poor as church mice. I happened to mention
how much land I had helped earn for my brothers, and they seemed so
interested I finished the job. Well, after they had heard about the
Land King, it made a noticeable difference in their treatment of me.
Not that they weren't always fine, but it made, I scarcely know how to
put it, it was so intangible--but it was a difference, an added
respect. You bet money is a power! I can see why Father hangs on to
those deeds, when I get out in the world. They are his compensation
for his years of hard work, the material evidence that he has succeeded
in what he undertook. He'd show them to John Jardine with the same
feeling John showed me improved car couplers, brakes, and air cushions.
They stand for successes that win the deference of men. Out in the
little bit of world I've seen, I notice that men fight, bleed, and die
for even a tiny fraction of deference. Aren't they funny? What would
I care--?"

"Well, I'D care a lot!" said Nancy Ellen.

Kate surveyed her slowly. "Yes, I guess you would."

They finished the dishes and went to church, because Robert was
accustomed to going. They made a remarkable group. Then they went to
the hotel for dinner, so that the girls would not have to prepare it,
and then in a double carriage Robert had secured for the occasion, they
drove to Bates Corners and as Kate said, "Viewed the landscape o'er."
Those eight pieces of land, none under two hundred acres, some slightly
over, all in the very highest state of cultivation, with modern houses,
barns, outbuildings, and fine stock grazing in the pastures, made an
impressive picture. It was probably the first time that any of the
Bates girls had seen it all at once, and looked on it merely as a
spectacle. They stopped at Adam's last, and while Robert was busy with
the team and John had alighted to help him, Nancy Ellen, revealing
tight lips and unnaturally red cheeks, leaned back to Kate.

"This is about as mean a trick, and as big a shame as I've ever seen,"
she said, hotly. "You know I was brought up with this, and I never
looked at it with the eyes of a stranger before. If ever I get my
fingers on those deeds, I'll make short w