he was behaving with
something like the candor due his mother, in saying, "I could imagine
her being imperious, even arrogant at times; and certainly she is a
wilful person. But I don't see," he added, "why we shouldn't credit her
with something better than pride in what she proposes to do now."

"She has behaved very well," said Mrs. Hilary, "and much better than
could have been expected of her father's daughter."

Matt felt himself getting angry at this scanty justice, but he tried to
answer calmly, "Surely, mother, there must be a point where the blame of
the innocent ends! I should be very sorry if you went to Miss Northwick
with the idea that we were conferring a favor in any way. It seems to me
that she is indirectly putting us under an obligation which we shall
find it difficult to discharge with delicacy."

"Aren't you rather fantastic, Matt?"

"I'm merely trying to be just. The company has no right to the property
which she is going to give up."

"We are not the company."

"Father is the president."

"Well, and he got Mr. Northwick a chance to save himself, and he abused
it, and ran away. And if she is not responsible for her father, why
should you feel so for yours? But I think you may trust me, Matt, to do
what is right and proper--even what is delicate--with Miss Northwick."

"Oh, yes! I didn't mean that."

"You said something like it, my dear."

"Then I beg your pardon, mother. I certainly wasn't thinking of her
alone. But she is proud, and I hoped you would let her feel that _we_
realize all that she is doing."

"I'm afraid," said Mrs. Hilary, with a final sigh, "that if I were quite
frank with her, I should tell her she was a silly, headstrong girl, and
I wished she wouldn't do it."

XIV.

The morning which followed was that of a warm, lulling, luxuriant June
day, whose high tides of life spread to everything. Maxwell felt them in
his weak pulses where he sat writing at an open window of the farmhouse,
and early in the forenoon he came out on the piazza of the farmhouse,
with a cushion clutched in one of his lean hands; his soft hat-brim was
pulled down over his dull, dreamy eyes, where the far-off look of his
thinking still lingered. Louise was in the hammock, and she lifted
herself alertly out of it at sight of him, with a smile for his absent
gaze.

"Have you got through?"

"I've got tired; or, rather, I've got bored. I thought I would go up to
the camp."

"You're not goin