tant part of it--to me. I've created
all this. I love it. It's my life. It's myself. And if--"

"And if my father doesn't renew the lease--?"

"Then I shall be done for. It won't be just going bankrupt in the money
sense; it'll be everything else--blasted." He subjoined, dreamily: "I
don't know what would happen to me after that. I'd be--I'd be equal to
committing crimes."

Thor couldn't remember ever having seen tears on an elderly man's cheeks
before. He took a turn down half the length of the greenhouse and back
again. "Look here, Fay," he said, in the tone of one making a
resolution, "supposing my father would give _me_ a lease of the place?"

"You, Dr. Thor?"

"Yes, me. Would you work it for me?"

Fay reflected long, while Thor watched the play of light and shadow over
the mild, mobile face. "It wouldn't be my own place any more, would it,
sir?"

"No, I suppose it wouldn't--not strictly. But it would be the next best
thing. It would be better than--"

"It would be better than being turned out." He reflected further. "Was
you thinking of taking it over as an investment, sir?"

Not having considered this side of his idea, Thor sought for a natural,
spontaneous answer, and was not long in finding one. "I want to be
identified with the village industries, because I'm going into
politics."

"Oh, are you, sir? I didn't know you was that way inclined."

"I'm not," Thor explained, when they had moved from the greenhouse into
the yard. "I only feel that we people of the old stock hang out of
politics too much and that I ought to pitch in and make one more. So you
get my idea, Fay. It'll give me standing to hold a bit of property like
this, even if it's only on lease."

There was no need for further explanations. Fay consented, not
cheerfully, but with a certain saddened and yet grateful resignation, of
which the expression was cut short by a cheery, ringing voice from the
gateway:

"Hello, Mr. Fay! Hello, Dr. Thor! Whoa, Maud, whoa! Stand, will you?
What you thinking of?"

The response to this greeting came from both men simultaneously, each
making it according to his capacity for heartiness. "Hello, Jim!" They
emphasized the welcome by unconsciously advancing to meet the tall,
stalwart young Irishman of the third generation on American soil who
came toward them with the long, loose limbs and swinging stride
inherited from an ancestry bred to tramping the hills of Connemara. A
pair of twinkling eyes and a