lonel snorted his amazement, and Harry Cresswell cut in:

"Yes," he calmly admitted; "and with good crops for three years we'd be
all right; good crops even for two years would leave us fairly well
off."

"You mean it would relieve you of the present stringency and put you
face to face with the falling price of cotton and rising wages," was
John Taylor's dry addendum.

"Rising price of cotton, you mean," Harry corrected.

"Oh, temporarily," John Taylor admitted.

"Precisely, and thus postpone the decision."

"No, Mr. Cresswell. I'm offering to let you in on the ground
floor--_now_--not next year, or year after."

"Mr. Taylor, have you any money in this?"

"Everything I've got."

"Well, the thing is this way: if you can prove to us that conditions are
as you say, we're in for it."

"Good! Meet me in New York, say--let's see, this is March tenth--well,
May third."

Young Cresswell was thinking rapidly. This man without doubt represented
money. He was anxious for an alliance. Why? Was it all straight, or did
the whole move conceal a trick?

His eyes strayed to the porch where his pretty sister sat languidly, and
then toward the school where the other sister lived. John Taylor looked
out on the porch, too. They glanced quickly at each other, and each
wondered if the other had shared his thought. Harry Cresswell did not
voice his mind for he was not wholly disposed to welcome what was there;
but he could not refrain from saying in tones almost confidential:

"You could recommend this deal, then, could you--to your own friends?"

"To my own family," asserted John Taylor, looking at Harry Cresswell
with sudden interest. But Mr. Cresswell was staring at the end of his
cigar.

_Eleven_

THE FLOWERING OF THE FLEECE

"Zora," observed Miss Smith, "it's a great blessing not to need
spectacles, isn't it?"

Zora thought that it was; but she was wondering just what spectacles had
to do with the complaint she had brought to the office from Miss Taylor.

"I'm always losing my glasses and they get dirty and--Oh, dear! now
where is that paper?"

Zora pointed silently to the complaint.

"No, not that--another paper. It must be in my room. Don't you want to
come up and help me look?"

They went up to the clean, bare room, with its white iron bed, its cool,
spotless shades and shining windows. Zora walked about softly and
looked, while Miss Smith quietly searched on desk and bureau, paying no
attention to