Life had emerged from darkness; the wheat was up, in token that, while man's faith may falter, and his hand grow slack, the great beneficent influences are strongest still, and seedtime and harvest shall not fail. As those who worked for him had cause to know, and as shrewd grain buyers in Winnipeg admitted, Leland was an essentially practical man; but there was in him, as there must be in the optimist, a vague recognition of the mysterious, upholding purpose that stands behind, and is partially revealed in the world of material things. He could drive the long furrow, he could rend the clods, but there was that in the red-gold wheat that did not come from them or him. It was the essence of life, a mystery and a miracle, his to control, or even to annihilate, but a thing he could never create. He felt something of this while he stood there with the warm wind on his face. The bitterness fell from him with his cares. Hope is eternal, and it sprang up strong in him as his softening eyes wandered over the vast sprinkling of sunny green. The harvest would follow the sowing, and toil was indestructible. His courage, which, indeed, had never faltered, changed its mood. It was no longer the grim resolution of a desperate man, but a more hopeful and gentler thing. Then, and he was not astonished, for it only seemed the natural sequence of things, his wife came out from among the birches with a smile in her eyes. "I have come to look for you. Breakfast is ready, and I have been waiting ever so long," she said. It was a trifling matter, but the man's heart beat faster than usual. It had not been her habit to rise in time to breakfast with him. As often happened when he felt the most, he could think of nothing apposite to say, and stood looking at her in silence. "I was almost afraid to venture until I saw you," she said. "I had expected to find you angry. It wouldn't have been astonishing." Leland laughed softly. "I'm afraid I was," he said "Still, it didn't seem to last when I saw the wheat was up, and it was bound to vanish when you came, anyway." "Ah," said Carrie, with a faint warmth in her cheeks, "it's a long time since you have even tried to say anything of that kind to me. Well, I have something to say, and I would like you to believe it is not merely what you once called the correct thing. I am very sorry for what has happened." "My dear, I think I know," and Leland smiled at her. "It was very good of you, and the only thing that was needed to make my worries melt away. I seem to feel I'm going to come out ahead of the market and the rustlers, now. Could anybody be afraid when he had seen the wheat?" The girl turned and gazed with only partial comprehension at the vast sweep of green. "Oh," she said, "I suppose it is a little wonderful. It looked so hopeless yesterday. I am glad one, at least, of your troubles has vanished, Charley." "And yours?" "Am I supposed to have any?"