us, was Miss Hastings, and
had a bird-like habit, meant to be very fetching, of cocking her head
to one side as she spoke, and peering up to men--oh, away up--with the
beady expression of a pet canary.

"My very first visit," confessed Mr. Turner, not yet realizing the
disgrace it was to be "new people" at Meadow Brook, where there was
always an aristocracy of the grandchildren of original Meadow Brookers.
"However, I hope it won't be the last time," he continued.

"We shall all hope that, I am certain," Miss Westlake assured him,
smiling engagingly into the depths of his eyes. "It will be our fault
if you don't like it here;" and he might take such tentative promise as
he would from that and her smile.

"Thank you," he said promptly enough. "I can see right now that I'm
going to make Meadow Brook my future summer home. It's such a restful
place, for one thing. I'm beginning to rest right now, and to put
business so far into the background that--" he suddenly stopped and
listened to a phrase which his trained ear had caught.

"And that is the trouble with the whole paper business," Mr. Princeman
was saying to Mr. Westlake. "It is not the tariff, but the future
scarcity of wood-pulp material."

"That's just what I was starting to explain to you," said Mr. Turner,
wheeling eagerly to Mr. Princeman, entirely unaware, in his intensity
of interest, of his utter rudeness to both groups. "My kid brother and
myself are working on a scheme which, if we are on the right track,
ought to bring about a revolution in the paper business. I can not
give you the exact details of it now, because we're waiting for letters
patent on it, but the fundamental point is this: that the wood-pulp
manufacturers within a few years will have to grow their raw material,
since wood is becoming so scarce and so high priced. Well, there is
any quantity of swamp land available, and we have experimented like mad
with reeds and rushes. We've found one particular variety which grows
very rapidly, has a strong, woody fiber, and makes the finest pulp in
the world. I turned the kid loose with the company's bank roll this
spring, and he secured options on two thousand acres of swamp land,
near to transportation and particularly adapted to this culture, and
dirt cheap because it is useless for any other purpose. As soon as the
patents are granted on our process we're going to organize a million
dollar stock company to take up more land and handle