e. If you don't
want to share in it you won't have to. But for the present it's your
duty to stay here and run things till we get back."

"What are you going to do after you get your new farm? You can't work
two farms a thousand miles apart, can you?"

"Oh, I guess that won't worry us long. The Americans are comin' in
now with lots o' good money. I was figurin' up that this place, as a
goin' concern, ought to bring about forty thousand dollars, and I'll
bet I could sell it inside of a week."

"Sell it?" she exclaimed. "You don't mean that you intend to sell
this farm?"

"Why not? If somebody else wants it worse'n we do, and has the money
to pay for it, why shouldn't I sell it?"

The tears stood in her eyes as she answered: "In all these years
while we have been building up this home I never once thought of it
as something to sell. It was too near for that--a part of ourselves,
of our very life. It seemed more like--like one of the children, than
a mere possession. And now you would sell it, just as you might sell
a load of wheat or a fat steer. Is this place--this home where we
have grown old and grey--nothing to you? Have you no sentiment that
will save it from the highest bidder?"

"Sentiment is a poor affair in business," he answered. "Property was
made t' sell; money was made t' buy it with. The successful man is
the one who has his price for everythin', and knows how t' get it. As
for growin' old and grey on this farm, why, that's a grudge I have
against it, though I don't think I'm very grey and I don't feel very
old. And if I get my price, why shouldn't I sell?"

"Very well," she answered. "I've nothing more to say. Sell it if you
must, but remember one thing--I won't be here to see it pass into the
hands of strangers." She straightened herself up, and there was a
fire in her eye that it reminded him of the day when she had elected
to share with him the hardships of the wilderness, and in spite of
himself some of his old pride in her returned. "I leave to-morrow for
a visit, and I may be gone some time. You reminded me of your
liberality a few minutes ago; prove it now by writing me a cheque for
my expenses. Remember I will expect to travel like the wife of a
prosperous farmer, a man whose holdings are worth forty thousand
dollars cash."

"So that's your decision, is it? You set me at defiance; you try t'
wreck my plans by your own stubbornness. You break up my family piece
by piece, until all I have l