t not suggest putting
your money into this. People would never finish talking over it."

"Yet you were willing to take me, Eileen, when your father's position
looked secure as the country itself and I had hardly one nickel to rub
against another."

"But you had ambition. You were brimming over with it. Nothing could
ever have stopped you from making progress sooner or later. And I knew
that. Lack of money means nothing to a young man with the ambition
which you had, and still have. As for me, I shall have nothing now but
myself."

"And me, Eileen, for I'll never let you back out. Why,--if you wish
it, I'll leave everything here as it stands, or I'll give it
away,--and we can go somewhere else and start all over."

"But that wouldn't be fair, if I did agree."

"Then, dearie, just let me help."

"No,--no,--no!"

"But the land should be saved,--at least, as much of it as we can
save. It is of the best, and when the real merits of the fruit of this
Valley are known, when the markets are opened up for us and
transportation facilities are improved, the land will be worth much
more than it is now, for the younger orchards will be bearing heavier
and heavier year by year. Eileen, we want to hold what we can of your
father's property, unhampered."

"Oh, yes!--you are terribly logical and convincing, but I won't love
you any more if you get mixed up in this;--it is too, too hopeless."

"Immovable as Vancouver Island! and yet they talk of frail femininity.
Ah, Eileen! as difficult to understand as, as any other lady!"

Eileen sighed, went over to the window and parted the curtains, as she
looked out over the peaceful Valley. Phil went to her side.

Up on the hill as they were, overlooking the surrounding country, they
almost forgot their troubles under Nature's hypnotism. The sky
overhead was opalescent; the ranges, dotted with grazing cattle and
unbroken horses, were bathed in sunshine. Away below them, the little
town, with its long Main Street of business houses and its stretch of
regular shade trees, drowsed in an adolescent contentment. All around
lay farm houses surrounded by fields in cultivation with parallel
lines of fruit trees. In the distance, due west between the hills, the
blue waters of the Okanagan Lake sparkled in a winding streak which
melted into the sky.

Phil put his arm round Eileen and drew her to him.

"And we talked about leaving all this, dearie!"

She looked up at him with moist eyes, a