"Don't you want me to remain young?" she asked reproachfully, while two tiny demons of gaiety danced in her eyes. "If I can't laugh I'll grow old. And there's nothing very funny here except you and Hafiz--Oh, Clive! You _have_ rumpled me! Please don't do it again! Yes--yes--_yes!_ I do surrender! I _am_ sorry--that you are so funny--Clive! You'll ruin this gown!... I promise not to say another disrespectful word.... I don't know whether I'll kiss you or not--_Yes!_ Yes I will, dear. Yes, I'll do it tenderly--you heartless wretch!--I tell you I'll do it tenderly.... Oh wait, Clive! Is Mrs. Connor looking out of any window? Where's Connor? Are you sure he's not in sight?... And I shouldn't care to have Hafiz see us. He's a moral kitty--" She pretended to look fearfully around, then, with adorable tenderness, she paid her forfeit and sat silent for a while with her slim white fingers linked in his, in that breathless little revery which always stilled her under the magic of his embrace. He said at last: "Do you really suppose I could make this farm-land pay?" And that was really the beginning of it all. * * * * * Once decided he seemed to go rather mad about it, buying agricultural paraphernalia recklessly and indiscriminately for a meditated assault upon fields long fallow. Connor already had as much as he could attend to in the garden; but, like all Irishmen, he had a cousin, and the cousin possessed agricultural lore and a pair of plough-horses. So early fall ploughing developed into a mania with Clive and Athalie; and they formed a habit of sitting side by side like a pair of birds on fences in the early October sunshine, their fascinated eyes following the brown furrows turning where one T. Phelan was breaking up pasture and meadow too long sod-bound. In intervals between tenderer and more intimate exchange of sentiments they discussed such subjects as lime, nitrogen, phosphoric acid, and the rotation of crops. Also Athalie had accumulated much literature concerning incubators, brooders, and the several breeds of domestic fowl; and on paper they had figured out overwhelming profits. The insidious land-hunger which attacks all who contemplate making two dozen blades of grass grow where none grew before, now seized upon Clive and gnawed him. And he extended the acreage, taking in woods and uplands as far as the headwaters of Spring Pond Brook, vastly to Athalie's delight. So the October days burned like a procession of golden flames passing in magic sequence amid yellowing woods and over the brown and spongy gold of salt meadows which had been sheared for stable bedding. And everywhere over their land lay the dun-coloured velvet squares of freshly ploughed fields awaiting unfragrant fertilizer and the autumn rains.