ad been carved. The pillared
"residences" had, after this, inevitably fallen to base uses; but the
old house at Hopewood, in its wooded grounds, remained, neglected but
intact, beyond the first bend of the river, deserted as a dwelling but
"held" in anticipation of rising values, when the inevitable growth of
Westmore should increase the demand for small building lots. Whenever
Amherst's eyes were refreshed by the hanging foliage above the roofs of
Westmore, he longed to convert the abandoned country-seat into a park
and playground for the mill-hands; but he knew that the company counted
on the gradual sale of Hopewood as a source of profit. No--the mill-town
would not grow beautiful as it grew larger--rather, in obedience to the
grim law of industrial prosperity, it would soon lose its one lingering
grace and spread out in unmitigated ugliness, devouring green fields and
shaded slopes like some insect-plague consuming the land. The conditions
were familiar enough to Amherst; and their apparent inevitableness
mocked the hopes he had based on Mrs. Westmore's arrival.

"Where every stone is piled on another, through the whole stupid
structure of selfishness and egotism, how can one be pulled out without
making the whole thing topple? And whatever they're blind to, they
always see that," he mused, reaching up for the strap of the car.

He walked a few yards beyond the manager's house, and turned down a side
street lined with scattered cottages. Approaching one of these by a
gravelled path he pushed open the door, and entered a sitting-room where
a green-shaded lamp shone pleasantly on bookshelves and a crowded
writing-table.

A brisk little woman in black, laying down the evening paper as she
rose, lifted her hands to his tall shoulders.

"Well, mother," he said, stooping to her kiss.

"You're late, John," she smiled back at him, not reproachfully, but with
affection.

She was a wonderfully compact and active creature, with face so young
and hair so white that she looked as unreal as a stage mother till a
close view revealed the fine lines that experience had drawn about her
mouth and eyes. The eyes themselves, brightly black and glancing, had
none of the veiled depths of her son's gaze. Their look was outward, on
a world which had dealt her hard blows and few favours, but in which her
interest was still fresh, amused and unabated.

Amherst glanced at his watch. "Never mind--Duplain will be later still.
I had to go