in love with him or
not; she thought she was. She liked being with him, she liked all he
did for her, she would miss him if he went away, she would be proud to
be his wife, but she did wish that he were interested in land, instead
of inventions and stocks and bonds. Stocks and bonds were almost as
evanescent as rainbows to Kate. Land was something she could
understand and handle. Maybe she could interest him in land; if she
could, that would be ideal. What a place his wealth would buy and fit
up. She wondered as she studied John Jardine, what was in his head; if
he truly intended to ask her to be his wife, and since reading Nancy
Ellen's letter, when? She should let the Trustee know if she were not
going to teach the school again; but someway, she rather wanted to
teach the school. When she started anything she did not know how to
stop until she finished. She had so much she wanted to teach her
pupils the coming winter.

Suddenly John asked: "Kate, if you could have anything you wanted,
what would you have?"

"Two hundred acres of land," she said.

"How easy!" laughed John, rising to find a seat for his mother who was
approaching them. "What do you think of that, Mother? A girl who
wants two hundred acres of land more than anything else in the world."

"What is better?" asked Mrs. Jardine.

"I never heard you say anything about land before."

"Certainly not," said his mother, "and I'm not saying anything about it
now, for myself; but I can see why it means so much to Kate, why it's
her natural element."

"Well, I can't," he said. "I meet many men in business who started on
land, and most of them were mighty glad to get away from it. What's
the attraction?"

Kate waved her hand toward the distance.

"Oh, merely sky, and land, and water, and trees, and birds, and
flowers, and fruit, and crops, and a few other things scarcely worth
mentioning," she said, lightly. "I'm not in the mood to talk bushels,
seed, and fertilization just now; but I understand them, they are in my
blood. I think possibly the reason I want two hundred acres of land
for myself is because I've been hard on the job of getting them for
other people ever since I began to work, at about the age of four."

"But if you want land personally, why didn't you work to get it for
yourself?" asked John Jardine.

"Because I happened to be the omega of my father's system," answered
Kate.

Mrs. Jardine looked at her interestedly. She ha