e has been carefully planted and
as it grew the young sheltering wood about it carefully thinned out. Then
as the trunks gained in size it was necessary to choose with care and
cut. With the oaks it's a work of generations, planting for one's
great-grandchildren, and the point that is suggested most clearly is the
continuity of interest that should exist between the men who use the
spade and ax and the men who own and plan. It is not a little thing that
the third and fourth generations should complete the task, when a mutual
toleration and dependence is handed down."

Lisle was conscious of a curious stirring of his feelings as he listened
to her. She was tall and finely proportioned, endowed with a calm and
gracious dignity which was nevertheless, he thought, in keeping with a
sanguine and virile nature. This girl was one of the fairest and most
precious products of the soil she loved.

"It's a pity in many ways that the Gladwyne property didn't come to you,"
he observed.

Her expression changed and he spread out one hand deprecatingly.

"That's another blunder of mine. I haven't acquired your people's
unfailing caution yet, but I only meant--"

"Perhaps it would be better if you didn't tell me what you did mean."

Lisle nodded. He felt that he had deserved the rebuke, as the truth of
his assertion could not be admitted without disparaging Gladwyne. She
would allow nothing to the latter's discredit to be said by a stranger,
but it was unpleasant to think that she regarded him as one. He changed
the subject.

"You mentioned that landlord and laborer had a joint interest in the
soil, and that's undoubtedly right," he said. "The point where trouble
arises is, of course, over the division of the yield. The former's share
is obvious, but nowadays plowman and forester want more than their
fathers seem to have been satisfied with. I don't think you can blame
them--in Canada they get more."

"I'll give you an instance to show why one can't treat them very
liberally. When my brother got possession he spent a great deal of
money--it was left him by his mother and didn't come out of the land--in
draining, improvements, and rebuilding homesteads and cottages, besides
freely giving his time and care. For a number of years he got no return
at all, and part of the expenditure will always be unproductive. It isn't
a solitary case."

They went on together through the shadowy, crimson-tinted dale until
Millicent stopped at th