tealing money from Massy's
grocery-store, where he was bookkeeper. And do you know what made him
steal it? It was to help us pay the rent the last time your father
raised it. I'll bet he's done worse than that twenty times a year; but
he's driving round in automobiles, while my poor boy's in Colcord."

CHAPTER II

On going down-stairs, Thor looked about him for Rosie Fay. She was
nowhere to be seen, and the house was cheerless. He could imagine that
to an ambitious woman circumscribed by its dreary neatness Duck Rock
with its thirty feet of water might be a welcome change.

Continuing his search when he went outside, he gazed round what was left
of the old orchard. He remembered Fay--a slim fellow with a gentle,
dreamy face and starry eyes. He had seen him occasionally during the
past eighteen years, though rarely. As a matter of fact, Fay's
greenhouses lay on that part of the shore of Thorley's Pond most out of
the way of the pedestrian. Only of late had new roads wormed themselves
up the steep northern bank of the pond, bringing from the city
well-to-do, country-loving souls who desired space and sunshine. It was
a satisfaction to Thor's father, Archie Masterman, that only the best
type of suburban residence was going up among these sylvan glades, and
that the property was justifying his foresight as an investor.

The young man could understand that it should be so, for the spot was
picturesque. Sheltered from the north by a range of wooded hills, it was
like a great green cup held out to the sunshine. The region was
favorable, therefore, to the raising of early "garden-truck." Whenever
the frost was out of the ground, oblongs of green things growing in
straight lines gave a special freshness to the landscape, while from any
of the knolls over which the township clambered clusters of greenhouses
glinted like distant sheets of water. One had to get them in contrast to
the sparkling blue eye of Thorley's Pond to perceive that they were not
tiny lakes. With so pleasing a view, hemmed in by the haze of the city
toward the south, and a hint of the Atlantic south of that, there was
every reason why Fay's plot of land should appreciate in value.

On these grounds it became comprehensible to Thor that his father might
raise the rent and still not be an instrument of oppression. It was
consoling to him to perceive this. It helped to allay certain
uncomfortable suspicions that had risen in his mind since coming home