' talk about."

"What's the matter, Dad?" The strained composure of his father's
voice had not escaped him.

"Nothin'...I might's well tell you now; you'll know it in a little
while anyway...Your mother is goin' away--on a visit."

"Like Beulah's visit, I suppose. So it's come to this. I've seen it
for some time, Dad, and you must 've seen it too. But you're not
really goin' to let her go? Come back to the house with me--surely
you two can get together on this thing, if you try."

"I have tried," said Harris, "and it's no use. She's got those
notions like Beulah--quittin' work, and twilights and sunsets and all
that kind o' thing. There's no use talkin' with her; reason don't
count for anything. I gave her a good pocketful of money, and told
her to write for more when she needed it. She'll get over her notions
pretty soon when she gets among strangers. Go in and have a talk with
her, boy; there's no use you bein' at outs with her, too. As for me,
I can't do anything more."

"I suppose you know best," he answered, "but it seems--hang it, it's
against all reason that you two--that this should happen."

"Of course it is. That's what I said a minute ago. But reason don't
count just now. But you have your talk with her, and give her any
help you can if she wants t' get away at once."

Allan found his mother in her room, packing a trunk and gently
weeping into it. He laid his hand upon her, and presently he found
her work-worn frame resting in his strong arms.

"You're not going to leave us, mother, are you?" he said. "You
wouldn't do that?"

"Not if it could be helped, Allan. But there is no help. Your father
has set his heart on more land, and more work, and giving up this
home, and I might as well go first as last. More and more he is
giving his love to work instead of to his family. I bear him no
ill-will--nothing, nothing but love, if he could only come out of
this trance of his and see things in their true light. But as time
goes on he gets only deeper in. Perhaps when I am away for a while
he'll come to himself. That's our only hope."

The boy stood helpless in this confliction. He had always thought of
difficulties arising between people, between neighbours, friends, or
members of a family, because one party was right and the other wrong.
It was his first experience of those far more tragic quarrels where
both parties are right, or seem to be right. He knew something of the
depth of the nature of his pare