Lydia stared about her. Supposing, she thought, that she owned a hundred acres of this pine land. She forgot Kent and concentrated every force of her mind on sensing what land ownership would mean. And suddenly there woke in her, her racial hunger for land. Suddenly there stirred within her a desire for acreage, for trees, soil, stream and shrub, a wide demesne that should be hers and her children's forever. She was still too young to trace the hunger back to its primal source, the desire for permanency, the yearning to possess that which is the first and the last of existence, which neither moth nor dust can corrupt nor thieves break through and steal. But somewhere back in her still childish mind a lust for a wide domain of pine land bestirred itself to begin battle with the sense of right and justice that her heart of hearts told her Levine was outraging. "Are you really going to talk to Levine?" Kent roused her from her reverie. "Yes! Didn't I promise to?" "Lots of good it'll do," grunted Kent. "And if you tell him we overheard him in the woods, I'll be sore." "I don't see why." "Because, after I finish High School, I'm going to tell him I know, to make him let me in on the deal. Look here, Lyd, don't tell him I was with you, anyhow." "Oh, all right," replied Lydia, crossly. "For goodness' sake, don't let's talk about it any more. I don't see why men always have to be plotting! I'm going back to camp and help pack." The driver arrived with the carryall at nine o'clock the next morning, and at mid-afternoon, Lydia was dropped at the gate, where Adam took possession of her. It was earlier than she had been expected, and Lizzie had not returned from her Saturday marketing. Lydia lugged her suitcase up the path, glad to be at home, yet murmuring to herself a little disconsolately. "Nothing to look forward to now, but school in the fall." The house seemed small and dingy to her, after the open splendor of the pine woods. Old Lizzie had "let things go" and the rooms were dusty and disorderly. Lydia dropped her suitcase in the kitchen. "I've just got to train old Lizzie," she said, "so that she won't leave her old carpet slippers and her apron in the middle of the kitchen every time she goes out. And Dad just must quit leaving his pipe on the dining-room table. I do wish we had Mission furniture instead of this everlasting old mahogany. I just guess there's got to be some reforming in this house, this summer. If I've got to leave off slang, Dad and Lizzie can leave off a few of their bad habits." She carried the suitcase on into her bedroom and Lizzie, coming in, hot and bundle-laden an hour later, found the living-room in immaculate order and Lydia, in an old dress, blacking the kitchen stove. "For the land's sake, child," said Lizzie as Lydia kissed her and took her bundles from her, "how tanned you are! And you shouldn't have begun work the minute you got home."